You might remember the street action surrounding Israeli historian Benny Morris's lecture at the London School of Economics in June. Well London activists are now saying that his response to that protest was... racism. At London BDS, they offer this mind-boggling quote from Morris (from the National Interest) about the street protest:
As I walked down Kingsway, a major London thoroughfare, a small mob—I don’t think any other word is appropriate—of some dozen Muslims, Arabs and their supporters, both men and women, surrounded me and, walking alongside me for several hundred yards as I advanced towards the building where the lecture was to take place, raucously harangued and baited me with cries of “fascist,” “racist,” “England should never have allowed you in,” “you shouldn’t be allowed to speak.” Several spoke in broken, obviously newly acquired, English.
Violence was thick in the air though none was actually used. Passersby looked on in astonishment, and perhaps shame, but it seemed the sight of angry bearded, caftaned Muslims was sufficient to deter any intervention. To me, it felt like Brownshirts in a street scene in 1920s Berlin—though on Kingsway no one, to the best of my recall, screamed the word ‘Jew’....
Uncurbed, Muslim intimidation in the public domain of people they see as disagreeing with them is palpable and palpably affecting the British Christian majority among whom they live, indeed, cowing them into silence.
London BDS then links to this video below, showing Morris's walk to the LSE in June at minute 31 or so-- with deconstruction of his claims. Yes, people are hurling accusations at Morris, but his version of events seems, well... Islamophobic.
I really don’t know why we would expect anything different or anything better from Morris.
He’s clearly so drunk with power over the privledged position of “his” narrative of the I/P conflict versus the I/P conflict as narrated by the victims, that any questioning, any doubts, any disagreement could only be the result of anti-Semitism, Arab Islamofascist violence, and jihadi murderousness.
Morris and his ilk clearly live in a world all their own – we’re lucky indeed that they deign to allow the rest of us to visit from time to time. While we do so, we should neither be seen nor heard. Especially not seen.
It’s going to be tough for Morris et. al. when reality finally catches up to them and falls on them like a ton of bricks.
You call Morris a racist, and then post that idiotically misrepresentative video.
Did YOU read Morris’ comments?
And, even the section of video that referred to. Aren’t you ashamed to publish such a proof as single snippets?
What is up with youi?
richard, have you watched the whole video?
What is up with you?? What are you talking about? Morris’ comments are ridiculous and stupid.
Who does not think this is a racist remark?
“As I walked down Kingsway, a major London thoroughfare, a small mob—I don’t think any other word is appropriate—of some dozen Muslims, Arabs and their supporters”
Only an Arab could think the creation of Israel’s demographic majority through mass expulsion could be an injustice, and only an Arab would be irritated with someone who tries to defend the actions of the Haganah/IZL/LHI especially when they ought to know better. And if you think that way and aren’t an Arab? You’re an Arab supporter.
Wow!
I had no idea I was Arabic. Who knew disagreement with ethnic expulsion was the ethnicity litmus test??? Geez, for years I’ve thought I was the descendent of Catholics Scots.
I’m impressed. Thanks Mr. Morris, I’m off to discover my cultural background now. However, it doesn’t change my distaste for your overt racism.
Here we go.
Richard, aren’t you ashamed of the fact that you defamed the Palestinian BDS National Committee by claiming that the BDS Movement “revised” their 2005 BDS call in the last year to include “militant warring language” (because in your racist conception, that’s all arabs and muslims understand) – without offering even a single snippet of proof?
Aren’t you ashamed that I’ve been asking you to provide proof to support your claim for over a month now, or to retract your claim and apologise – yet you do nothing?
I must have asked you a dozen times or more by now. It isn’t difficult. Just provide some evidence, or have the decency to retract them, and apologise.
Here is the full video of his lecture at LSE:
link to youtu.be
Now my dear ‘peace-lovers’ and “truth-seekers” -where he made ANY untruthful remarks or has lied about historical facts?
Please watch it fully and take a shot. I would like to hear your response.
dimadok :
“where he made ANY untruthful remarks or has lied about historical facts?”
++++ First, zionist settlement started later than 1882. First ones was so called P.I.C.A settlers, and they had good relationship with palestinians. Then he says that arabs rejected 1936 Peel commission proposal, when in fact, both jewish and arab sides rejected that in official way.
Arab armys didnt enter to Israel state. Only exception was two cases, and what i have found out, both can be seen as intervention to on going ethnic cleansing of palestinian villages. Israel government reply UN confirm that at only in two places arab armys entered Israel soil.
I only looked first 6 minutes and that was enough. BS.
Next what you dimadok can do, is go to IDF archives and read yourself war reports from 1948. Good Luck, if they allow you to see those report because they are classified.
Let’s dance, shall we?
The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, commonly known by its Hebrew acronym PICA (Hebrew: פיק”א), was established in 1924 and played a major role in supporting the Yishuv in Palestine until its disbandment in 1957 (link to en.wikipedia.org)
ICA was founded at 1891.
First Jewish settlers were from First Aliyah and started to arrive starting from 1881 from Russia and Eastern Europe, following pogroms there.
Do you have any sources that contradict his account of the conflict?
He clearly states that there was a struggle between two national movements and, fortunately for us, Jews have won. Is that a fact or not? Or perhaps you have another opinion on the nature of the battle?
dimadok :
“Let’s dance, shall we?
The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, commonly known by its Hebrew acronym PICA (Hebrew: פיק”א), was established in 1924 and played a major role in supporting the Yishuv in Palestine until its disbandment in 1957.”
++++ Rock’n roll or tango ?
link to unispal.un.org
link to unispal.un.org
link to unispal.un.org
“First Jewish settlers were from First Aliyah and started to arrive starting from 1881 from Russia and Eastern Europe, following pogroms there.”
++++ Right.
“Do you have any sources that contradict his account of the conflict?”
++++ Yes.
link to unispal.un.org
TRANSJORDAN NOTIFIES UN OF ARMED ENTRY INTO PALESTINE
(The following cable was received by the Secretary-General of the United Nations
today, 16 May from King Abdullah of Transjordan:-)
link to unispal.un.org
QUESTIONS ADDRESSED TO THE GOVERNMENTS OF EGYPT, SAUDI ARABIA,
TRANSJORDAN, IRAQ, YEMEN, SYRIA AND LEBANON, TO THE ARAB
HIGHER COMMITTEE AND TO THE JEWISH AUTHORITIES IN
PALESTINE PURSUANT TO THE DECISION OF THE
SECURITY COUNCIL TAKEN AT THE 295TH
MEETING HELD ON 18 MAY 1948
link to unispal.un.org
CABLEGRAM DATED 18 MAY 1948 FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE
SECURITY COUNCIL ADDRESSED TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER
OF TRANSJORDAN, AND REPLY THERETO DATED 20 MAY 1948
link to unispal.un.org
CABLEGRAM DATED 18 MAY 1948 FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL ADDRESSED TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF EGYPT, AND REPLY THERETO SUBMITTED BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF EGYPT AT THE THREE HUNDRED AND FIRST MEETING OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL
link to unispal.un.org
CABLEGRAM DATED 18 MAY 1948 FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL ADDRESSED TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF SYRIA, AND REPLY THERETO SUBMITTED BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF SYRIA AT THE 301ST MEETING OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL
link to unispal.un.org
CABLEGRAM DATED 18 MAY 1948 FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL ADDRESSED TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF LEBANON, AND REPLY THERETO SUBMITTED BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF LEBANON AT THE 301ST MEETING OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL
link to unispal.un.org
CABLEGRAM DATED 18 MAY 1948 FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL ADDRESSED TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF IRAQ, AND REPLY THERETO SUBMITTED BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF IRAQ AT THE 301ST METING OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL
link to unispal.un.org
CABLEGRAM DATED 18 MAY 1948 FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL ADDRESSED TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF YEMEN, AND REPLY THERETO SUBMITTED BY THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF YEMEN ON 23 MAY 1948
link to unispal.un.org
CABLEGRAM DATED 18 MAY 1948 FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL ADDRESSED TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF SAUDI ARABIA, AND REPLY THERETO SUBMITTED BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF SAUDI ARABIA ON 22 MAY 1948
link to unispal.un.org
link to unispal.un.org
LETTER DATED 18 MAY 1948 FROM THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR SECURITY
COUNCIL AFFAIRS ADDRESSED TO THE JEWISH AGENCY FOR PALESTINE, AND REPLY
DATED 22 MAY 1948 ADDRESSED TO THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
CONCERNING THE QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY THE SECURITY COUNCIL
link to unispal.un.org
link to unispal.un.org
“He clearly states that there was a struggle between two national movements and, fortunately for us, Jews have won. Is that a fact or not?”
++++ Right. And what didnt he mention ?
” Or perhaps you have another opinion on the nature of the battle?”
++++ Yes. Its in IDF archives. Go and check from there….but you cant because of this reason :
State archives to stay classified for 20 more years, PM instructs
link to haaretz.com
And i am sorry about those capital letters, thats how those are in original text.
By which you mean “let’s just cherry-pick one point I erroneously believe I can counter and quietly drop the other”?
Nice try.
In any case, the historical distortions, half-truths and omissions – of which there are several – are not the point. The point is Morris’ endorsement of ethnic cleansing, fueled by his brutal and racist opinions of Palestinians.
Wonderful sources-thank you very much!
Here is an example:
“No outward violation of Egyptian frontiers by “Jewish Forces” or precisely by terrorist Zionist bands has been made, nor have they penetrated into Egyptian territory.
Nevertheless, the declaration – which was accompanied by violence a terrorism – of a Zionist State next door to Egypt and situated in the midst of Arab Nations where feeling was already running high, undoubted constitutes a menace to the security of Egypt and other Arab states neighbouring to Palestine. ”
A menace? The declaration is the casus belli? But that is exactly what Morris and others say.
Another quote: “The reply of my Government to this question is: The League of Arab States is not now negotiating with the Jews on a political settlement in Palestine and will not enter into such negotiations so long as the Jews persist in their intention and their efforts to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.”
And another : “The proclamation of a Jewish separate State in a part of Palestine and the atrocious acts committed by their forces to materialize their outstanding aspirations blocked the way to any negotiation to that end”
Great sources-thank you once again.
And by the way, do you really believe in everything what is said from one side (Arab here) and deny another (Israel), or your still able to maintain the your own judgement?
“A menace? The declaration is the casus belli?”
Of course it was. To any rational person (which almost by definition seems to exclude Zionsists) the conquest of a people’s land (in this case, the land of the Palestinian people) by an invading horde of colonialist foreign occupiers (the Zionists and their progeny) is, of course, a menace.
Menace then, menace now, menace tomorrow.
So to follow your logic-national aspirations of Jews are the menace? Perhaps Arabs are the colonizers of the land, whereas Jews are implementing their right of self-identification and create their national state?
The only good thing from your comment, is that you’ve spelled clearly what others are ashamed to say here.
“So to follow your logic-national aspirations of Jews are the menace?”
No, it is the theft of the land, the ethnic cleansing which are the menace. If they could exercise that asperation without the theft, killings, ethnic cleasings and oppression, then I would have no problem with it at all.
Moreover, the fact that it is Jews is, and should be, wholly irrelevant. Or do you think that the Jews should be permitted to commit those crimes simply because they’re Jews??
“Perhaps Arabs are the colonizers of the land, whereas Jews are implementing their right of self-identification and create their national state?”
For that to be so you would have to engage in an egregious act of self-delusion and a counterfactual ignoring of the fact that the land has been Palestininans for thousands of years, with a negligible Jewish minority and as even as late as the beginning of the Zionist invasion, 90% of the population of this land were Palestinians.
“The only good thing from your comment, is that you’ve spelled clearly what others are ashamed to say here.”
LMAO. No, I think it’s more an insight into your mental pathology that refuses to believe that people oppose your state based on history and merit and the state’s action.
It must be really useful to steal someone’s land, kill their crops, burn their children to death and drive them and their wives into a refugee camp AND THEN be able to blame any objection to your actions on the false allegation that the objector is a bigoted against you. Must be REALLY useful.
I see your problem dimadok. You are a little confused about the concept of time. The Palestinians were there first, except for a small minority of Jews who’d been there maybe since Biblical times. So Zionists who come from outside and plan to establish a majority Jewish state are the colonizers. That’s fairly simple, though like I said you have to understand concepts like “before” and “after”.
“Perhaps Arabs are the colonizers of the land.”
LOL! You mean the semites AREN’T from the middle east? And where exactly do you ascribe the longitude and latitude of their origins – Germany? LOL I bet you think the brown-skinned Arabs, including Arab jews, are really all German.
Your anti-semiticism against Arabs is quite disgusting – as bad as them wretches on two legs who claim the holocaust never happened.
I know you comaround here specifically to offend but who cares about you and what you do? Your so-called ‘argument’ holds water like a sieve dimadok.
First, thank you both for the diagnosis of my mental state and possible pathologies, with regards of time perception and moral principles. For what it worth I haven’t diminished myself to such observations, perhaps I should next time.
As for the subject of this thread-there are 2 national aspirations on the same piece of land, one is based on the principle “we live here for a very long time-it is ours” and another-”our national identity, cultural traditions and religious beliefs are connected to the same specific part of the land”.
Now it is the question of who’s will stronger and who will give up his ambitions. It is very nice to claim that Palestinians have a “moral” ground better of the Zionist but it does not help to resolve the issue. Morality and politics sometimes are the questions of survival or disappearance of the people, and are not some ideas you throw over the afternoon cup of tea. The history of Jews spans over the same thousands of years, where Palestinian were living in the land of Jews. And anyone who denies this fact is committing a fraud, and I would add the most hurtful are those of Jews who deny their historical legacy, sacrificing it towards international acceptance and embrace.
We are here to stay and you may chose to live with us as a neighbors or you’ll have to leave. I think 1.2 million of Israeli Arabs have learned that, now it is time for the Palestinians to go through the same process.
Mig,
Said you: “Arab armys didnt enter to Israel state. Only exception was two cases, and what i have found out, both can be seen as intervention to on going ethnic cleansing of palestinian villages. Israel government reply UN confirm that at only in two places arab armys entered Israel soil.”
This is false. On May 15 the Arab League sent the UN a cablegram reaffirming to them their rejection of the legitimacy of the partition, the rejection of any Jewish sovereign state, and their intentions to “intervene in Palestine solely in order to help its inhabitants restore peace and security and the rule of justice and law to their country, and in order to prevent bloodshed” and establish a unitary Palestinian state.
Their intention to disallow any Jewish sovereign presence was, of course, the truth, but the intention to allow an independent Palestine was a lie, as all of the surrounding states in the league had their own designs on the area. According to Morris, by the end of the war, the “Arab war plan…changed into a multinational land grab focusing on the Arab areas of the country. The evolving Arab plans failed to assign any of these whatsoever to the Palestinians or to consider their political aspirations.”
Said the Egyptians to the UNSC:
“The Egyptian Government have from the outset declared, that their military operations are not directed against Palestine Jews but against terrorist Zionist bands who are armed with the latest and most destructive weapons and who have built up in the Jewish settlements scattered throughout Palestine, fortifications and strongly fortified pillboxes as springboard to attack neighbouring Arab villages and their peaceful inhabitants.”
This is really rich considering that the surrounding Arab states had been feeding troops and supplies into attacks on the Yishuv ever since the partition vote in November all the way through April. When the Yishuv, after suffering nearly five months of attacks finally took to the offensive in early April, the whole Arab/Palestinian war effort quickly disintegrated. Then followed the pan-Arab invasion of May 15.
UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie wrote in his memoirs “The invasion of Palestine by the Arab states was the first armed aggression the world had seen since the end of the [Second World] War. The United Nations could not permit that aggression to succeed and at the same time survive as an influential force for peaceful settlement, collective security and meaningful international law”
In the invasion plan agreed to in April and executed in May, Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Transjordanian armies were to invade the nascent Jewish state in a wide, multi-pronged pincer to conquer the Galilee and the eastern Jezreel valley before reaching Haifa, the main objective.
The ALA attacked Jewish held Malikya from Lebanon, the Syrians attacked Jewish held Mishmar Hayarden north of the Sea of Galilee, and Jewish-held Samakh to the south of the sea. An Iraqi force from the East Bank 20 miles south of Tirat- Svi shot northwest across the Jordan to Nablus and further north to Jenin, wheeling round Ulm al-Fahm south to attack Jewish held Geulim. The Jordanians launched both northern and southern attacks. The north Jordanian force shot north to Nablus, where it divided, one pivoting north to Tulkharm, then wheeling south through Taybe and Qalqilya to Ras al-‘Ein, and the other shooting south from Nablus to Ramallah, where it linked with the southern force, which had shot across the Jordan and through Jericho. At Ramallah the Jordanians split their forces, one south to Jerusalem, one southwest to Latrun, and one east by northwest, wheeling round Ben Shemen to Lydda to Ramla.
The 6000 man Egyptian force pivoted at Rafah into a parallel two-pronged advance to the north, the eastern thrust slicing through Jewish–held areas of the Negev just north of Nirim, Gvulot, Tse’elim, Alumim, northward through Beersheba and Hebron to Jerusalem. The western thrust cut through Gaza to Isdud with Tel-Aviv as the objective, with a detachment peeling off eastward from Maidal to al-Faluja to Beit Jibrin in an attempt to link up with the eastward thrust and surround the Jewish encampments in the Negev.
This then was the plan that was put into action. Its aim was to abort the nascent Jewish state and establish a “unitary Palestinian state” that the Arabs would then slice up between themselves. It is certainly true that ‘Abdullah of Jordan had decided at the last moment to confine his objectives to seizing as much of the West Bank as possible but that doesn’t negate the fact that Syrian, Iraqi, and Egyptian attacks both into and toward Jewish held areas were occurring all around the crescent shaped perimeter that the Yishuv were presently holding: Malikya, Mishmar Hayarden, Samakh in Galilee, Geulim near the coastal plain, and the areas of the Negev just north of Nirim, Gvulot, Tse’elim, Alumim.
The Pan-Arab plan’s execution thus broke down amidst the disunity and distrust of the various partners toward one another, and their competing, conflicting agendas. As Benny Morris wrote:
“Thus in the days both before and after 15 May, the war plan had changed in essence from a united effort to conquer large parts of the nascent Jewish state, and perhaps destroy it, into an uncoordinated, multilateral land grab. As a collective, the Arab states still wished and hoped to destroy Israel—and, had their armies encountered no serious resistance, would, without doubt, have proceeded to take all of Palestine, including Tel-Aviv and Haifa.”
In any event, the notion that the Arabs did not invade Jewish apportioned areas of Palestine is simply false. Both sides, in the post May 15 stage, wanted as much territory as they could conquer and hold, and the Arabs were the aggressors in an attempt to seize as much from both Jews and Palestinians as possible, their noble, flowery rhetoric to the UN notwithstanding.
“The history of Jews spans over the same thousands of years”.
Only Arab jews. Not ashkanazim. Don’t mix them up so fancifully.
And you’re mistaken, zionism will NEVER live in peace in the middle east. I can guarantee you this much. And israeli Arabs have acccepted NOTHING about zionism. They hate it. They always will. They will eventually destroy it.
No, it is correct. Your claim that they planned to or wanted to – no matter if true or not – does not change the fact that they didn’t.
Quiz question 1: Was Deir Yasssin, to take a standard example, part of the Jewish portion of the partition plan?
Answer: Nope. Far away.
Quiz question 2: What, then, were proto-Israeli forces doing there?
Answer: Protect Jerusalem? Which, according to the plan they supposedly had accepted was not part of their state and ergo none of their business?
It’s really quite easy: Israel was the first to reach beyond its self-declared borders and make a grab for territory. Israel’s attacks and campaign of ethnic cleansing was what motivated the Arab states to intervene.
Morris himself acknowledges that. But you just can’t escape your own reflexes.
In 1700, a group of about 1,500 Polish Jews, following the call of Rabbi Yehuda He-Hasid, immigrated to Israel, though many died on the perilous journey. In the 1760s and 1770s, groups of Hasidic Jews settled in Israel, and Mitnadgim (Ashkenazi Jews who opposed Hasidism) arrived in the 1780s. Around 1800, the Perushim, followers of the Vilna Gaon, were the first substantial Ashkenazi group to immigrate to Israel, and they formed the basis for Israeli Ashkenazi communities. Most of the new arrivals lived in the north, in Safed and Tiberias, though a small Ashkenazic community was established in Jerusalem; following a devastating earthquake in Safed in 1836, Jerusalem began to gain prominence as the center of the Yishuv Hayashan.
And I do not distinguish between the two groups-you are, and the question is who’s racist now? Mind you there are plenty of dark skin colored Jews from all over the world, including Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Caucasus.
Read something-it helps. Also making militant remarks was always a sign of weak argumentation.
i googled you text and found it on stand for israel do you have another source you can quote please?
Judah he-Hasid
link to en.wikipedia.org
The Perushim (Hebrew: פרושים) were disciples of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who left Lithuania at the beginning of the 19th century to settle in the Land of Israel, then under Ottoman rule
link to en.wikipedia.org
Nahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym Ramban, (Girona, 1194 – Land of Israel, 1270), was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator
link to en.wikipedia.org
Here Annie, some reading for you.
As for Taxi-his anger and hatred blind him.
dimadok, your second link doesn’t tell where any of this info comes from, specifically. you must know wiki is not a decent source wrt the history of israel. for all i know all of this could have come from Encyclopedia Lechaluts Hayishuv Uvonav: Demuyot Utemunot, by David Tidhar (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Rishonim, 1947–1971).
look at this
your third link:
here’s the references for the first link
you must know there’s a campaign to alter the demographic make up of jerusalem during the 17th century right? it is unsupportable by ottoman archives. i really don’t know what the truth is. had the zionists not muddied the water so much wrt jewsih history i would be more inclined to believe their allegation but now that this has moved into the political realm i don’t find sources like ‘Folktales of the Jews’ published in 2006 compelling evidence.
sorry.
Ramban
link to archive.org
link to jewishgen.org
Spanish archives:
link to sephardicgen.com
link to web.archive.org
“As for Taxi-his anger and hatred blind him”.
And you are the wide-eyed Eros of zion?
Do you have any links about Jewish communities that have actually lived in Palestine for more than a couple generations or so?
Koshiro,
Said I: “In any event, the notion that the Arabs did not invade Jewish apportioned areas of Palestine is simply false.”
Said you: “No, it is correct. Your claim that they planned to or wanted to – no matter if true or not – does not change the fact that they didn’t”
This is incorrect. I said they both planned and executed what they planned. The Arabs attacked the Jewish held areas of Malikya, Mishmar Hayarden, Samakh in Galilee, Geulim near the coastal plain, and the areas of the Negev just north of Nirim, Gvulot, Tse’elim, Alumim.
“Quiz question 1: Was Deir Yasssin, to take a standard example, part of the Jewish portion of the partition plan? Answer: Nope. Far away.”
Deir Yassin was within the UN partition’s Corpus Separatum surrounding Jerusalem. It was not the exclusive possession of either the Jewish or Arab state.
“Quiz question 2: What, then, were proto-Israeli forces doing there?
Answer: Protect Jerusalem? Which, according to the plan they supposedly had accepted was not part of their state and ergo none of their business? It’s really quite easy: Israel was the first to reach beyond its self-declared borders and make a grab for territory.”
This is false. It is necessary, I think, to remember that the first Arab-Israeli War did not begin on May 15, 1948. It in fact began immediately after the UN partition vote was taken on November 29, 1947. The whole war unfolded in two stages: The Civil war stage from December 1947 to May 15, 1948 which involved fighting between the Yishuv and various Arab and Palestinian militias, and the International stage, which commenced with the Pan-Arab invasion of May 15.
The Arabs had rejected the partition vote that was taken in late November 1947, and Arab attacks on Jewish targets began on November 30, the day after the partition vote. On that day, a Jewish ambulance en route to the Hadassah Hospital came under fire, a group of Arabs ambushed a Jewish bus traveling from Netanya to Jerusalem, killing five and wounding seven, and attacked another Jewish bus en route to Jerusalem from Hadera, killing two. A Jewish person was murdered in Tel-Aviv’s Camel Market, in the prison at Acre Arab prisoners attacked Jewish ones, who were forced to barricade themselves in their cells before the British intervened, in Haifa Jews passing through Arab neighborhoods were shot at, and Jewish vehicles were stoned all over Palestine.
Over the next several days there were shootings, stonings, and rioting, bombs tossed into cafes, Molotov cocktails thrown into shops, killing and maiming scores. Young Arabs commandeered the offices of the local national committees demanding weapons, and the AHC proclaimed a three day strike to begin the next day, enforcing closure of Arab shops, schools, and businesses and organized and incited Arab crowds to attack Jewish targets. On December 2, a mob of several hundred Arabs ransacked Jerusalems’s Jewish commercial center, looting, burning, stabbing, and stoning all before them.
Up until December 4, most of the Arab violence was scattershot and the result of intifada-like incited mayhem. It was on December 4, however, that the real Palestinian Arab assault began in earnest, when some 120-150 armed Arabs attacked the Efal kibbutz, the first small unit military attack on a Jewish settlement, and on December 8 Hasan Salame, commander of the Lydda front, launched another large-scale attack on the Hatikva quarter in south Tel-Aviv. Two days later there was another abortive assault on the Hatikva, and an armed assault on the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. All these company-sized attacks were repulsed, but they set the pattern for the conflict, which was evolving from mob rioting and armed clashes to more military/guerilla style small unit operations. It was not until December 9 that the Hagana’s head of operations, Yigael Yadin began responding in kind to consolidate and protect crucial Jewish transportation arteries. The war had begun, and the Arabs were attacking the Yishuv in Jewish apportioned areas of Palestine, not the other way around. At the Arab league summit in Cairo, it was decided to send one million Egyptian pounds and 10,000 rifles to the Palestinian war effort.
The Arabs launched further company and battalion sized assaults against a major convoy to Ben-Shemen (December 14), attacked Kfar-Szold (January 10), Etzion Bloc (January 14), Yechiam (January 20), Tirat Svi (February 16), Magdiel (March 2), Ramot-Naftali (March 4), successfully ambushed three major Jewish convoys (March 27, 28, & 31), and attacked Mishmar-Haemak (April 4). The period was certainly punctuated with terrorist attacks by the Stern and Irgun from December 12 and onward, and a few limited retaliatory attacks by the Haganah in the first two weeks of February, but nothing any where near the scale of the Arab attacks. Despite their weaknesses and disorganization, the Palestinian militias and the ALA had found the Yishuv’s weak spot: the crucial roadways between the scattered settlements, and they hammered home their operational and geographical advantages with a tenacity and a skill that stretched the Yishuv almost to their breaking point. Before early April, the Haganah was, by and large, on the defensive, and fighting for its existence.
The situation continued to deteriorate. A British report commented in early April:
“The intensification of Arab attacks on communications and particularly the failure of the Kfar Etzion convoy (March 27-28), probably the Yishuv’s strongest transport unit, to force a return passage has brought home the precarious position of Jewish communities both great and small which depend on supply lines running through Arab controlled country. In particular, it is now realized that the position of Jewish Jerusalem, where a food scarcity already exists, is likely to be desperate after 16 May.”
The first Arab-Israeli war is called a war because it was a war, and not a one-way criminal act inflicted by one side upon another helpless victim. In the pre April 6 stage the Yishuv was on the strategic defensive and the war was a localized, low-intensity conflict between the Yishuv and other assorted Jewish and Arab militias and paramilitaries ever since the announcement of the partition in late November 1947, and what occurred between Nov. 1947 and May 15, 1948 was a series of local attacks and counter-attacks between the Arabs and the Yishuv in the context of that conflict. Of course, acknowledging that context runs contrary to the attempts here to portray the situation as an ongoing act of Jewish ethnic cleansing and wanton criminality.
The situation for the Yishuv in early April, just after the successful ambush of the latest Jewish convoy to Jerusalem on March 31, was precarious. The sabotage of the convoys was increasing, the strangulation of the roadways and all arteries of communication between the scattered communities of the Yishuv were sharpening, the attendant shortages of basic commodities and weapons inside Jerusalem were growing, and the siege around the city was tightening. When US Rep to the UN Warren Austin announced in late March that the war in Palestine proved that the partition was impossible, thus indicating a backtracking of American support, it only added to the gloom and the increasing demoralization of the Yishuv. Another British report in early April read:
“It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Yishuv and its leaders are deeply worried about the future. The 100,000 Jews of Jerusalem have been held to ransom and it is doubtful that the Arab economic blockade of the city can be broken by Jewish forces alone. If the Jewish leaders are not prepared to sacrifice the 100,000 Jews of Jerusalem, then they must concede, however unwillingly, that the Arabs have won the second round of the struggle which began with a Jewish victory in the first round on the 29th of November.”
This then was the dire situation facing the Yishuv in early April of 1948. In late March Ben-Gurion saw the scattered, disconnected communities of the Yishuv and their vulnerabilities to attack. He knew they would have to be consolidated into a defensive perimeter or they would be annihilated piecemeal, and that the communication arteries between the communities would have to made secure. This led to the formation of the Plan Dalet (Operation Nachshon). As for the Plan, Benny Morris writes:
“The essence of the plan was the clearing of hostile and potentially hostile forces out of the interior of the territory of the prospective Jewish State, establishing territorial continuity between the major concentrations of Jewish population and securing the future State’s borders before, and in anticipation of, the invasion [by Arab states]. The Haganah regarded almost all the villages as actively or potentially hostile…the plan was neither understood nor used by the senior field officers as a blanket instruction for the expulsion of ‘the Arabs’.
But, in providing for the expulsion or destruction of villages that had resisted or might threaten the Yishuv, it constituted a strategic-doctrinal and carte blanche for expulsions by front, brigade, district and battalion commanders (who in each case argued military necessity) and it gave commanders, post facto, formal, persuasive cover for their actions. However, during April–June, relatively few commanders faced the moral dilemma of having to carry out the expulsion clauses. Townspeople and villagers usually left their homes before or during battle, and Haganah rarely had to decide about, or issue, expulsion orders…”
The attempts by the likes of Khalidi, Pappe, and others to portray the Plan as a blueprint for the total expulsion and dispossession of the Arabs from Palestine is simply a conspiracy theory. It was a military operation, first and foremost to consolidate a defensive perimeter among the Jewish communities in Palestine in response to nearly five months of attacks, secondly to secure a relief passage to Jewish Jerusalem, then besieged, and third, a preparation for the attack by surrounding Arab states that Ben Gurion knew was inevitable.
Prior to the Haganah’s launching of Operation Nachshon in the second week of April 1948, the engagements between the Yishuv and the Arabs had never involved anything larger than company-level units on either side. The Arab Liberation Army (ALA) offensive against the Yishuv in Mishmar-Haemek had just been repulsed with heavy losses, Palestinian military commander Abd al-Qader al Husseini had been killed on April 8, the Stern/Irgun had just perpetrated the Deir Yassin massacre on April 9, the Muslim Bothers launched a failed attack on Kfar-Darom on April 10, there was an ambush of a Jewish medical convoy by the Arabs on April 13 slaughtering some 80 nurses and doctors in cold blood (as retaliation for Deir Yassin), and there was a failed Druze offensive against the Yishuv in Usha and Ramat-Yohanan in Galilee.
This then is the true context of the events that put Jewish forces in the Deir Yassin area; the violence, involving heavy fighting and, yes, some atrocities (like Deir Yassin) that were being committed by both sides. They were there because of war, and a war that was being waged against them, and not the other way around.
The Yishuv had prepared for war, and they were certainly not going to remain within the vulnerable lines of the partition if the surrounding Arab states attacked. The defense of those lines would be any staff officer’s nightmare. In the event of hostilities they were simply not defensible. In September Moshe Sharett told an interlocutor that if the Arabs initiate war, “we will get hold of as much of Palestine as we can hold.” The war was thus the game-changer, and rendered the partition lines functionally irrelevant.
Yet it is remarkable to see that, even by the time of the Pan-Arab invasion of May 15, how little territory the Yishuv were holding outside the Jewish apportioned areas. In Galilee the Arabs held parts of the northeast Jewish section west of Safed, while the Yishuv held the Arab section north of Acre, and the Arabs held the 10-15 mile stretch of the coastal plain south of Haifa apportioned to the Jews. What is today the West Bank was almost completely in Arab hands with the exception of a narrow corridor east of Isdod and south of Latrun running east to Jerusalem. The Negev wasn’t even completely occupied by the Yishuv at this time. The main population centers of Nazareth, Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, Ramallah, Lydda, Latrun, Beersheba, Hebron, Kfar Darom, Gaza, and Isdod were all in Arab hands. The Yishuv were holding barely any Arab apportioned territory, and were not even occupying all of the Jewish apportioned territory.
In any case, it is evident that your assertion that “Israel was the first to reach beyond its self-declared borders and make a grab for territory” is incorrect; the Arabs had been attacking those borders ever since December 1947.
Your assertion that “Israel’s attacks and campaign of ethnic cleansing was what motivated the Arab states to intervene” and that “Morris himself acknowledges that” is untrue. As Morris has said:
“Thus in the days both before and after 15 May, the war plan had changed in essence from a united effort to conquer large parts of the nascent Jewish state, and perhaps destroy it, into an uncoordinated, multilateral land grab. As a collective, the Arab states still wished and hoped to destroy Israel—and, had their armies encountered no serious resistance, would, without doubt, have proceeded to take all of Palestine, including Tel-Aviv and Haifa.”
And..
“Arab war plan…changed into a multinational land grab focusing on the Arab areas of the country. The evolving Arab plans failed to assign any of these whatsoever to the Palestinians or to consider their political aspirations.”
It did. You are falsely conflating a civil war in Mandate Palestine (which was also instigated by proto-Israeli forces, but that is not relevant here) with the war between several Arab countries and the state of Israel.
Israel was, at the moment it was declared a state, already busy invading and conquering territory that – according to its own declaration of independence – was not his own. Arab armies only entered Palestinian territory after this.
No, it is completely true, and Morris’ claims of what the “Arab war plan” later changed to are not relevant in this context:
“The transformation of the exodus in April into a massive demographic upheaval caught the AHC and the Arab states largely unawares and caused great embarrassment: It highlighted the AHC’s (and the Palestinians’) weakness and the Arab states’ inability, so long as the Mandate lasted, to intervene. At the same time, it propelled these states closer to the invasion about which they were largely unenthusiastic.” Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 263.
“our national identity, cultural traditions and religious beliefs are connected to the same specific part of the land”
Which is all very well and it’s why I have never had any criticism to make of Judah Magnes and his brand of Zionism. Where mainstream Zionism went wrong was in the belief that Jews had the right to move into an already inhabited land and turn it into a Jewish state with a Jewish majority against the will of the inhabitants, using force if necessary, as it surely would be.
Koshiro,
Said you:
“You are falsely conflating a civil war in Mandate Palestine (which was also instigated by proto-Israeli forces, but that is not relevant here) with the war between several Arab countries and the state of Israel.”
It is not clear what “conflating” I am supposedly doing here. The war between the Yishuv and the Arab and Palestinian Arab forces began in December 1947 and continued until the armistice agreements of 1949. The only difference between the “Civil War” stage (Nov.30, 1947-May14, 1948) and the “International” stage (May 15, 1948-January, 1949) is that in the Civil War stage, the Arabs were fighting the Yishuv alongside the Palestinians by proxy and only did so directly in the latter stage from May 15 onward. It was the same war; it merely escalated in scale and included the Arabs’ direct involvement in the International stage. Also, the Arabs, not the Yishuv, instigated the war, and were the aggressors.
The Arabs, both in and outside Palestine, rejected the UN partition, which they had never accepted from the beginning. Arab UN delegates had warned that any attempt to implement the partition would lead to war; after the partition vote was taken, the Arab delegations in the UN walked out of the plenum.
Eliahu Sasoon, of the JAE, who was worried and doubtful about the Yishuv’s ability to win an all-out war against the Arabs, sent Azzam Pasha, the Arab League secretary, a letter in early December 1947 expressing the Jews’ desire to avoid conflict, and implored the Arab League to accept the Jewish state; the letter was unanswered. The previous September, Pasha had rejected Abba Eban’s offer of Jewish-Arab conciliation and cooperation, telling him that the Jews were foreigners, their presence in Palestine was only temporary, and that their only hope was to abandon Zionism and statehood and accept Arab rule in a unitary state.
Arab violence in response to the partition was hardly limited to Palestine; violence literally exploded in all the Arab capitols, with thousands taking to the streets chanting anti-Jewish and anti-Western slogans. There were also physical attacks on British and American legations, so much so that the British government had to make arrangements to evacuate British citizens from Syria. In Cairo, the ‘ulema of Al-Azhar University (one of Islam’s supreme authorities) proclaimed a “worldwide jihad in defense of Arab Palestine.”
There is simply no room for serious debate on this. The Arabs attacked the Yishuv in response to the partition vote the day after the vote was taken. They attacked not only because they rejected the partition, but because they rejected any independent, sovereign Jewish entity in any part of Palestine, whatever its size, and were determined to crush it. They had long vowed to do so, and made no secret of it. There were bitter disagreements between the various Arab governments after the partition vote about the timing, means and methods by which the war against the Yishuv in Palestine was to be waged, but certainly no disagreement about whether or not to do so. The questions debated between them were a matter of when, and how, not whether or not. The conflicting strategies, loyalties, and agendas would ultimately doom the Arab war effort. But all were united in viewing the crusade for Palestine as a matter of principle and honor, and they honestly and honorably believed in their cause. The first attacks in December 1947were sporadic, spontaneous, and lacking in coordination, but with every passing month they grew in frequency, scale, intensity, and military sophistication.
Said you:
“Israel was, at the moment it was declared a state, already busy invading and conquering territory that – according to its own declaration of independence – was not his own. Arab armies only entered Palestinian territory after this.”
Israel was being attacked since December 1947 while it was still the “Yishuv.” After nearly five months of Arab attacks, they took to the offensive. The war and the pan-Arab invasion that followed had rendered the partition lines irrelevant. The collapse of the Palestinian war effort in late April and early May necessitated a response from the Arabs, and they gave it when the British Mandate expired. The effort to abort the nascent Jewish state that had begun in December 1947 merely entered a new, escalated stage after May 15.
None of this contradicts what Morris says in the “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited.” The Arabs were concerned about the collapse of the Arab war effort following the Yishuv counter-offensive in early April, and the mass exodus from the towns and villages that accompanied it. But that was not all. They did not, as I pointed out earlier, attack only the Arab-held and apportioned areas, but mostly Jewish held areas, and the Yishuv were not only occupying but a sliver of Arab apportioned territory, they weren’t even occupying some of the Jewish apportioned areas on May 15. The Arabs tried to finish what they started in December 1947, to abort the nascent Jewish state and establish an Arab ruled entity that they would then divide between themselves. They failed. That’s how it goes.
Morris, in a critique of Walt and Mearsheimer’s noxious screed has written:
“The Palestinian Arabs, supported by the surrounding Arab world, rebelled against the U.N. partition resolution and unleashed a bloody civil war, which was followed by a pan-Arab invasion. The war resulted in a large, partial transfer of population. The chaos that all had foreseen if Palestine were partitioned without an orderly population transfer in fact enveloped the country. But this is emphatically not to say, as Mearsheimer and Walt do, that the Zionists’ occasional ruminations about transfer were translated in 1947-1948 into a overall plan and policy–unleashed, as they put it, when the “opportunity came,” as if what occurred in 1948 was a general and premeditated expulsion.
The Zionist leadership accepted the partition plan, which provided for a Jewish state in 55 percent of Palestine with 550,000 Jews and between 400,000 and 500,000 Arabs. The Jewish Agency called on the Arabs to desist from violence, and promised a life of beneficial co-existence. In private, Zionist officials began planning agricultural and regional development that took into account the large Arab minority and its continued citizenship in the new Jewish state. Indeed, down to the end of March 1948, after four months of the Palestinian Arab assault on the Yishuv, backed by the Arab League, Zionist policy was geared to the establishment of a Jewish state with a large Arab minority. Haganah policy throughout these months was to remain on the defensive, to avoid hitting civilians, and generally to refrain from spreading the conflagration to parts of Palestine still untouched by warfare.
Indeed, on March 24, 1948, Yisrael Galili, the head of the Haganah National Command, the political leadership of the organization, issued a secret blanket directive to all brigades and units to abide by long-standing official Zionist policy toward the Arab communities in the territory of the emergent Jewish state–to secure “the full rights, needs, and freedom of the Arabs in the Hebrew state without discrimination” and to strive for “co-existence with freedom and respect,” as he put it. And this was not a document devised for Western or U.N. eyes, with a propagandistic purpose; it was a secret, blanket, internal operational directive, in Hebrew. It was only at the start of April, with its back to the wall (much of the Yishuv, in particular Jewish Jerusalem, was being strangled by Arab ambushes along the roads) and facing the prospect of pan-Arab invasion six weeks hence, that the Haganah changed its strategy and went over to the offensive..”
What a well put together coherent video! I’m glad they interviewed those who stuck thru Morris’ baloney, it shows they weren’t remotely suckered by him. How could LSE justify the Israeli airport level of security they imposed on attendees?
That description could easily be taken straight from a British National Party (BNP – fascist party, who use Israel as an example to follow) forum. The childish, cartoon version of demonstrators (bearded!! Oh my goodness, call the police; kaftanned?? haven’t seen one of those in London since the 1960′s; and they were all Muslims? really? Most of the demonstrators on those kind of protests are English actually) – all of it a pathetic racist attempt to slur England, anyone who points out his racism, and big up himself. Like the other thread about Jewish ‘genes’, it seems senior Israelis are increasingly aligning themselves with nascent fascists in Europe (who incidentally command a miniscule support). So Breivek’s conflation of the two wasn’t so far out.
People like Morris and co don’t seem to have any idea how ridiculous, out of touch and racist they are – for in their world it is normal, the logical conclusion of the Zionism they worship.
“London BDS then links to this video below, showing Morris’s walk to the LSE in June at minute 31 or so– with deconstruction of his claims. Yes, people are hurling accusations at Morris, but his version of events seems, well… Islamophobic.”
Wow, but that video is near unwatchable. Who ever puts these videos together needs to really learn a little bit about the video arts and film/video editing before doing something like this. (Especially the awful needle scratches. over and over and over… uggh.)
Just finished watching the 3o some minutes thanks. Does not sound like people were impressed. No need to wonder why
The leader of the original Brownshirts didn’t much like caftans either.
He describes in Mein Kampf the repulsion he felt when he saw a Jew in a black caftan with black hair locks in Vienna.
fantastic video by inminds. wow, very powerful. thank you for posting phil.
who are the naked blindfolded prisoners being paraded at 13:15 in the video? has anyone seen this footage before?
during the last 1/2 of the video they interviewed people who had attended the whole speech. excellent constructive criticism plus they deconstruct morris’s assertions about the ‘mob’ step by step. really good! i hope this (fantastic) video haunts him the rest of his days.
Morris should be confronted.
All his kind should be.
We need more public confrontation of racist.
I am reminded of someone here describing the nasty and almost violent way they were attacked by some Jewish couple, or woman I think it was, at the MoveOverAIPAC rally.
People like this need to realize that they are going to be subjected to the same type of public confrontational acts they do on others.
Confront the facts not the views.
The kind of people you would confront on this have already rejected the facts.
You don’t debate with people who have already repeatedly rejected the facts and in addition usually lie about them.
All you can do is shame them.
“All you can do is shame them.”
Yeah shame them in public.
Or kick ‘em in the nuts when no one is looking :-)
I think the film was idiotically biased.
The depiction of the harrangue sounded accurate given the five or six minutes of similar. The tone of the harrangue was violent, suppressive.
Neither of your comments on this thread bothers to denounce Morris’ racism, or his wish that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine had been more thorough, and thus more murderous. Neither do you mention his belief that the Palestinians are animals who should be caged. I suppose such statements merely echo your sentiments. At least to a considerable degree. You’ll just happily denounce anyone who points out such vile aspects of this (or any other Israelis) character, especially when it’s on record. Harangue has one r Richard, and did you not notice there was no broken English, nor caftans, and the tone was one of anger, not violence. Do you know the difference?
Morris got off lightly compared to the vile abuse he previously directed at Palestinians.
And of course you ignored the point that there was no horde of “bearded, caftaned Muslims” and the inevitable consequence that Morris is either a liar or insane.
Typical for you that you have nothing to say on Morris’ “cages” for the Palestinian “animals”, but complain about the “harrangue” he received for it.
How sympathetic are you, by the way, to Morris’ idea that Israel should have “finished the job” and expelled all Palestinians from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza? Quite, I presume?
EDIT: Oh, I’ve been ninja’d.
What “vile abuse”? Were you there?
Do you honestly trust that video as an “honest” portrayal?
What are his current views, what he argues for? Two healthy states, fairness.
But, you, in condemning him, silence those views as well, as you have “successfully” silenced literally millions with similar views.
Do you honestly trust that video as an “honest” portrayal?
yeah cuz when they filmed it that day they just knew he was going to (later) allege he was followed by angry mobs of arabs and as a result specifically didn’t film them, or they did and then cut them out of the shot. because all those people who they interviewed outside the hall where he spoke were involved in a conspiracy. they collided to make it appear as tho morris was spouting unsupported allegations/”opinion” when in actuality he back up everything he said with circumstantial evidence/not.
get. a. life.
Ok Richard, give us the links showing that Morris has revoked his racist views, as quoted from Haaretz 2004. Meanwhile, I won’t wait, I’m going to catch some ZZZzzzz’s. None of ‘em zio.
“Do you honestly trust that video as an “honest” portrayal?”
Why not? Or given a choice between Morris’s racism and our lying eyes, we’re supposed to trust Morris’s racism?
“What are his current views, what he argues for? Two healthy states, fairness.”
Sure, Richard. That’s why he regrets that Ben Gurion’s ethnic cleansing wasn’t more thorough. Because nothing says “fairness” more than an enthusiastic endorsement of war crimes.
Nonsense. In his latest book he has explicitly rejected the two-state solution, blaming – of course – the Palestinians. link to nytimes.com
Morris’ whole spiel is to sabotage any halfway acceptable solution in favor of continued subjugation of the Palestinians – which is the solution in his view – and blame the victims for it.
We should be so lucky.
But I digress. You have not:
- Condemned Morris’ endorsement of ethnic cleansing.
- Condemned Morris’ description of the Palestinians as “animals” to be put in cages.
- Acknowledged that he either lied or imagined things when talking about “bearded, caftaned Muslims”.
Thanks for that reference Koshiro.
In the NY Times article, they summarize that he doesn’t believe that the Arab World, or that Palestinians (any faction) will genuinely accept Israel as Israel.
What do you think? Will they, even conditionally?
And, that he believes that Israel existing was important enough to fight for.
It is a big and difficult question for Phil and Adam and all dissenters here, whether they would advocate that the Arab world, the Palestinians, should fight a war (in which they kill, possibly ethnically cleanse, be killed, expose their families to killing), if the conditions of even potential mutual acceptance don’t exist.
What do you think?
You think the situation will be limited to a “war of ideas”, in which only families are divided, in which political position trumps kinship?
You have still not:
- Condemned Morris’ endorsement of ethnic cleansing.
- Condemned Morris’ description of the Palestinians as “animals” to be put in cages.
- Acknowledged that he either lied or imagined things when talking about “bearded, caftaned Muslims”.
Quit dodging.
Oh, and FYI:
That is most definitely not what he said – no one except you uses this particularly worthless buzzphrase.
Witty is a racist. He won’t condemn Morris b/c he shares the same racist views.
Richard why were you censored on Tikkun Olam? I’ll answer for you – b/c you’re a troll, and only here on Mondoweiss are you tolerated enough to amass 10,000+ comments of cynical lies.
cliff ive made it clear why i tolerate witty– he represents a vast segment of jewish opinion.
On the questions of why I have not condemned Morris’ advocacy of ethnic cleansing, is primarily because I don’t believe that he did say (or mean) that he advocated for that, but that he observed that the ambiguity of the current conflict MIGHT have shifted to a done deal, a wound that could have healed, rather than a festering one.
I think that he speculates that 1948 might have been a surgery quit midstream.
And, he regards Arabs’ willingness to accept Israel as the measuring stick.
There is no test of it now, as both communities have functionally (in action), renounced the Arab League proposal. Israel questioned the intent originally, combined with the internal fight over whether it was desirable.
The question of intent was confirmed from the perspective of the right wing, when the Saudi monarchy originally rejected even consented modification of the borders.
There is no question that likud is not doing anything to indicate any intention of seeking peace on the basis of the green line. They were never confident of the extent of peace required on the part of Palestinians to consider the green line as a viable border.
The green line is only a viable border if there is no, or extremely slight, possibility of terror from Palestine. I don’t know of anyone that can claim that that is the case currently, with the level of animosity promoted.
The standard of who one is censored by, as an affirmation of “free speech”?
Phil,
Your “tolerance” of me as a type, is insulting.
You need to go further to an actual advocacy of democracy, and actual respect of persons, and if you are in a “war of ideas” some accurate summary of the ideas presented.
Stick your neck out.
>> In the NY Times article, they summarize that he doesn’t believe that the Arab World, or that Palestinians (any faction) will genuinely accept Israel as Israel.
If by “Israel as Israel” you mean:
- an oppressive and thieving colonialist state, why should they?
- a supremacist “Jewish state” from which undesirable non-Jewish Israelis can be excised at whim in order to preserve a Jewish majority, why should they?
If, however, by “Israel as Israel” you mean a secular, democratic and egalitarian state not engaged in a campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder, and interested in sincere negotiations for a just and mutually-beneficial peace, then the Arab world merits condemnation.
So, which “Israel as Israel” do you mean? Which one is the Arab world refusing to accept?
RICHARD WITTY- “Phil, Your “tolerance” of me as a type, is insulting.”
Jeez, Witty, show some gratitude! I, for example, am grateful for the opportunity that Phil and Adam have given me to publicly put my foot in my mouth. You should be too!
So, your approach is to cover your ears and sing LALALALALA? Because he most definitely did say that.
“On the questions of why I have not condemned Morris’ advocacy of ethnic cleansing, is primarily because I don’t believe that he did say (or mean) that he advocated for that, but that he observed that the ambiguity of the current conflict MIGHT have shifted to a done deal, a wound that could have healed, rather than a festering one.
I think that he speculates that 1948 might have been a surgery quit midstream.”
Ethnic cleansing isn’t “surgery”–that’s classic dehumanizing rhetoric. Orwell wrote about that. Maybe you should read him sometime, though I hasten to add that, Richard, he was CRITICIZING that sort of language, not endorsing it.
Anyway, as Koshiro said, Morris was clearly endorsing ethnic cleansing and there is no mistaking it. You’re just making stuff up. You’ve been called on this several times. Of course you’ve endorsed it yourself.
But sorry to distract you from your important work denouncing people who don’t like ethnic cleansing .
Isn’t that like a double negative? An idiot calling something idiotic? Does that mean it was brilliant?
Benny Morris is a jerk who has not had to deal with anything approaching the vicious harassment visited upon Norman Finkelstein or the late Israel Shahak by American Jewish Zionists in the tradition of the Nazi Brownshirts he alludes to.
Notice how quickly the discussion about Morris’s talk in London degenerates from allegations of ‘racism’, to the weaselly phrase ‘confront’, to advocating violence.
London BDS is making a mistake in trying to extend left-wing censorship – ‘no platform for fascists’ – to Zionists. Anti-fascism was not designed to ‘confront’ Jewish power, and cannot be adapted to this end. Opposition to Israeli apartheid is best served by supporting freedom of speech. It doesn’t work to support freedom for Ward Churchill and Bill Ayers, and to oppose it for David Irving and Benny Morris.
Freedom of speech is not the same as the freedom not to be talked back to. Morris has no right to spread his propaganda unopposed.
Freedom of speech is also not the same as the freedom to be given a platform. Morris is free to spread his propaganda on a blog or wherever, at his own cost, in his own time. No need to fly him to London.
I agree with Jaynot.
Morris is grappling with very difficult conundrums. If he has changed his views from sincerely much more liberal a few years ago, then there is a reason for that.
For the “warriors of ideas” to just name-call, rather than to investigate the conundrum in fact, is to ostrich (a verb).
PHIL?
Morris isn’t grappling with anything. He simply thinks it’s just fine to bilk non-Jews like he’s some sort of walking anti-Semitic caricature, then shoot up the “lesser races” right down to the children like he’s a Nazi reincarnate, and then has the audacity to talk about Arabs like an Orientalist bigot.
It’s no wonder you’re fighting so hard to defend him.
“If he has changed his views from sincerely much more liberal a few years ago, then there is a reason for that.”
He’s a racist idiot. That’s the short version. The longer version is that when the Second Intifada broke out, like many racist so-called liberals he totally ignored Israel’s share in the responsibility for the breakdown of the talks and he totally ignored the fact that nearly all the killings in the first few months were Palestinians killed by Israelis and he totally ignored the fact that even when the suicide bombing began, most of the civilians killed were Palestinians killed by Israelis.
I think the short version summarizes it nicely.
Absolutely amazing video. I loved it. It reminds me of when I lived in London and walked down that same street and went to speeches at LSE. the protestors and makers of this film did a great job
Witty is getting more and more pathetic in his old age. People tend to do that when they look at their life and realize what little they accomplished. And what has Witty accomplished? Nothing, except lied through his teeth for Israel and defended all racists who stand by Israel.
Richard, this is a Morris thread, an ideal place for you to reply to what I wrote on the Martin thread. Here it is again for you.
Richard, our conversation is not about what conclusions are condemned here. Nor is it a discussion of Morris and Avnery.
It is about you, Richard, about your choice [and why you have made it] and my two questions to you.
If or when you directly deal with those, you will prove the truth or otherwise of what your many Mondoweiss critics say of you.
The sum total of Morris’ views, as I understand them are:
If the political reality of the past, AND the present, is only possibly us OR them, then I choose us.
If the political reality of the present is us AND them, I choose AND.
He’s recently given up hope for peace, as most of you have. He seems to regard the Dahlan sentiment as genuine. “We will never accept Israel, not Hamas, not Fatah.”
You want to make a change, work for peace, mutuality. It might end up in vain, but at least it will be a good that you are working for, rather than only a victory.
I still have hope, but during the time I spend here, I gradually lose hope, as the willingness to harm, to suppress, to abuse, is so present.
I wish that if Phil believed that harranguing Dr Morris was justified, that he would be the one to do it, directly, on film, so that he could not be then accused of being a remote arm-chair “chicken-hawk”.
Tell you what: You give me the money to fly wherever Morris speaks next, and I’ll “harrangue” him for you all day long.
Otherwise, I’ll leave the job to the activists on the spot. Thankfully, they are almost everywhere.
The rest of your post is drivel not worth answering to, once more testimony of your inability to deal in concrete issues. Contradictory, rigid yet malleable abstractions devoid of real-world meaning, all you ever offer.
Oh noes! What will Palestinians do if they lose your sympathies? The “peace process” would be doomed! Doooooomed!
Do you and Morris take the same view on the Holocaust? That it’s in the past and we should ignore it in the present? Or is that something the both of you only apply to Palestinians?
You don’t (or refuse to) understand what most of us want Richard.
It is peace, but not your hollow version; the “peace” that zionists inevitably think will come when Israel has managed to sufficiently crush Palestinians beneath their jackboots.
So, tell me more about the peace that you desire, Sumud. Maybe we are in complete agreement as to goal.
I don’t seek to crush Palestinians in the slightest.
No, THAT you reserve for the rest of us, people like Rachel Corrie. Palestinians get white phosphorous and shelling from warships. Crushing by bulldozers and tanks is merely incidental for Palestinians by Zionists.
You won’t permit discussion of possible agreement, Chaos?
Too threatening for you?
No I’m pretty sure what’s threatening is people being set on fire and rolled over by bulldozers and your response is, “So what? Don’t you want to discuss whether I have a right to do this to those people?” No, I don’t want to discuss that, it’s a crime against humanity, Witty. Your ideology is a crime against humanity.
Possibly not in the literal sense, Richard – but you do advocate that Israeli Palestinians are assigned permanent second class citizenship within Israel; that Israeli jews are free to strip them of their citizenship and ethnically cleanse them from Israel if they so choose. That’s pretty shitty, you must admit.
I’ll happily expand on what i see as a just peace; but not until you do us the courtesy of explaining why you apparently fabricated the text you quoted as being what the BDS Movement present as their 2005 BDS call “a year ago”, and “today” – saying they had “revised” the BDS call to include “militant warring language”.
I have lost track of the number of times I’ve asked you to provide a source for that information. When you are ready to provide evidence to back up your claim, or apologise for making defamatory statements, I’ll engage with you further. I like the dialogue, but I can’t and won’t tolerate liars. Please, prove me wrong.
But, if his thesis on the current state of Palestinian willingness to permanently treaty with Israel are accurate, then choosing to survive and to win, is a reasonable choice.
His assessment of what is possible may be wrong. You could address that, but you don’t.
You prefer to harrangue.
Better to clarify that Israel is accepted at the green line, clearly.
That Dahlan stated that both Fatah and Hamas refuse to recognize Israel, even conditionally, is troubling.
That is what the Israeli right asserts.
Is it true or not?
“But, if his thesis on the current state of Palestinian willingness to permanently treaty with Israel are accurate, then choosing to survive and to win, is a reasonable choice.”
Regardless of what Palestinians are willing to express or do while the occupation exists, that does not determine Israel’s choices. Morris is, here, simply looking for a way of justifying his racism and Judeo-supremacy and is, surprise, surprise, blaming the victim of his own aggression.
He’s answering the question that Phil raised on Anti-war.com, “what are you not willing to do in support of Israel?”
Phil asked that of distant Americans, who would have a conditional approach.
Morris answered, to survive, I’ll support almost anything, and recommend benign approaches.
To assume that Palestinians’ and solidarity’s statements and actions are inconsequential, is to abuse democracy, to abuse justice.
Rationalizations for ideology, factionalism, wars of ideas.
What you are willing to kill for? What are you willing to have others’ kill for?
Moral questions.
Thanks Richard I agree, this is the question, what is a Jewish state in a colonialist context worth to you? Esp if you don’t live there? And I say, Frankly my dear, I dont feel a need for it,
Phil
“Morris answered, to survive, I’ll support almost anything, and recommend benign approaches.”
And, again, this is mere justification. Because anyone who would “support almost anything” will accept anything regardless of what ego-stroking “benign approaches” he recommends.
“To assume that Palestinians’ and solidarity’s statements and actions are inconsequential,…”
No one did that. Why are you creating a straw man?? the point is about Israelis responses, which they are free to make, regardless of what the Palestinians say.
“…is to abuse democracy, to abuse justice.”
Less so than anything that the Jews of Palestine have done to the Arabs for the last 70-100 years. So what the hell? Or is it only where Jews might be disadvantaged that it becomes a problem for you?
When did that ever happen?
The most “benign” Morris and his ilk ever envisioned were the crumbs in form of a crippled, non-sovereign protectorate the Palestinians were “offered” at Camp David. And when the Palestinians had the gall not to prostrate themselves before their Israeli benefactors for this “generous offer”, he quickly turned from patronizing-racist to genocidal-racist.
So, Phil, by your posting this here, you are advocating harrangue of political opponents.
You are not asserting your right to speak, but your right to suppress others’.
I respect the many that do and have lived there. I don’t run my sympathies only through my own personal experience, as I know that that is incomplete, and even jaded.
I would hope that you would adopt similar humility relative to the representativeness of your own personal experience (only a small minority of Jews were brought up by academics and went to Harvard). And, I would hope that you would adopt similar humility relative to the European Jews that needed to emigrate and settle in Israel, their lifeline at the time.
Your personal experience as an elite Jew in America, ignores the reality of surving the holocaust, and the violently rejected immigration of Jews to Palestine/Israel and the violent persecution of European Jews returning to homes in Hungary, Poland, Russia, Rumania, France.
That was a long time ago, but those embodied traumas are the founding reality of Israel. They are healed only by acceptance, not yet offered confidently.
Your not feeling a hunger, does not make others hunger unreal.
Ask and answer the question, of yourself, and of a hundred Jews at random. Write a representative poll. Distinguish yourself by the extent of objectivity in the poll, rather than any partisan posture.
You’ll find a bell curve, but strongly weighted to the “much” category, and many in the “anything” category.
Without question, Palestinians have also been denied the right to live decently.
You flirt (more than flirt) with either/or, which in this case can be genocidal.
Peace is much better.
Then, a next question could be “What do you think is possible?”
then,
“What do you recommend?”
then,
“How would you recommend accomplishing it?”
and then,
“Which do you think is the most relevant basis of action, what one fears, what one observes, what one can practically accomplish, what one aspires to?”
“European Jews that needed to emigrate and settle in Israel, their lifeline at the time …the violently rejected immigration of Jews to Palestine/Israel”
You keep dragging these lines out.
I keep pointing out that emigrating and settling in Palestine did not require setting up a Jewish state in the territory, and certainly did not require driving out the native inhabitants.
I keep pointing out that the opposition to immigration of Jews to Palestine was the direct result of both the declarations of the Zionists that they intended to set up a Jewish state and drive out the native inhabitants, and the actions of the Zionists in driving the Palestinian farmers off the land that Zionists purchased.
And you keep ignoring both of these points, and trying to imply that the Jews in question were innocent parties persecuted by evil Arabs. You have the gall to say “They are healed only by acceptance, not yet offered confidently” as though it were the duty of the Palestinians to accede to all the wishes of the Jews.
You are devoid both of honesty and of shame.
Witty, have you been living in a cave for the last 20 years? Acceptance of the green line as borders is the default position of the Palestinian state, backed by the Arab league and the international community, denied only by one noteworthy player: Israel.
Morris’ misrepresentation of the issues and grievances relevant to the Palestinians is so bizarre, it does not merit an answer. Post-Palestine Papers it would almost be laughable, if it weren’t so viciously contemptous and racist.
Morris’ opinions are simply based on the idea that he can read the Palestinians’ collective mind, with a feeble attempt at support by citing a single Fatah leader.
P.S.: witty. v. To misappropriate a noun as a verb.
P.P.S.: Maybe I should just work out what I think the minimum acceptable 2ss would be, just as an exercise. On you, Witty, it would naturally be wasted, but maybe others could join in.
“Maybe I should just work out what I think the minimum acceptable 2ss would be, just as an exercise. On you, Witty, it would naturally be wasted, but maybe others could join in.”
That would be interesting. To start off with, it has to be acceptable to the vast majority of the Palestinians, including refugees outside the WB and Gaza. That’s really the bottom line. If Palestinians don’t get one man one vote and if they don’t want that (I don’t know) then they should at least receive a very hefty consolation prize.
If we were really going to be fair, we’d talk about the borders in the UN partition agreement (which still gave more land to Israel–55 to 45 percent if I remember right). Israelis living in what would be the new Palestinian state would be allowed to remain. But I know that advocates of the 2ss never mean anything like that. “Palatable to both sides” means “at the very least, 78 percent of the land goes to Israel and we’ll negotiate land swaps so that Israelis are inconvenienced as little as possible and whatever is left over we’ll call a generous settlement.” Decades have been wasted because Israeli views have been given far more weight than simple fairness would justify. But then that’s the point–Israel and its American supporters have always been willing to establish facts on the ground and run out the clock.
Indeed.
The major problem is while the opinions of Palestinians in the WB and Gaza are comparably well-researched, I am not aware of any such research in the major refugee populations outside these areas.
Among those who are polled, there is normally a workable, if not exactly overwhelming support for 1967 borders with minor land swaps and very solid support for an end to the conflict and all claims after the signing of a peace agreement (so much for your mindreading, Mr. Morris…)
Palestinians are less supportive of compromises regarding the refugees and East Jerusalem, and least supportive of the demilitarization of the Palestinian state.
As I said, this does not include refugees outside of Palestine. Trying to figure out what would be acceptable to them (for example, if the ~2 million refugees with Jordanian citizenship would largely want to stay in Jordan) is basically guesswork.
***************************************************************
For my tentative proposal for the minimum acceptable solution for Point 1: Refugees, I am just going to be optimistic and assume that the Jordanian citizens would largely stay put. I’ll also assume the same for refugees living outside of camps in the WB/Gaza.
Basically, this leaves us with the refugee populations of Lebanon and Syria, and the camp populations of WB/Gaza, as those most in need. In total, about one million people.
For these groups, I’d suggest the following:
1. An offer of citizenship in the place of origin for all refugees from Syria and Lebanon. This would mostly mean Israeli citizenship, but since there are also people who were displaced from the WB in 1967, a minority would get Palestinian citizenship.
Ideally, this would be complemented by offers of citizenship in third countries (US, Europe). I’d place little to no faith in Lebanon and Syria themselves. These countries are to foxtrotted-up to provide for the refugees.
- Total number: ~900,000
- To receive Israeli citizenship (guess): ~500,000
- To receive Palestinian citizenship (guess): ~200,000
- To receive other citizenship (guess): ~200,000
2. Refugees living in camps in the WB and Gaza should receive Palestinian citizenship, plus permanent residency rights in their country of origin (again mostly Israel, with a minority of internally displaced Palestinians):
- Total number: ~600,000
- To receive permanent residency rights: ~500,000
My reasoning here is that while these refugees of course have the same rights as others, they are more rooted in the society of the Palestinian state and should be incorporated into its future political life.
Also, I won’t deny that, odious as it is, bringing down the number of potential Arab voters in Israel will make this more likely to acceptable to the Israeli public.
Together with the settlers in non-swapped areas, Israel will have to deal with an influx of up to 1.1 million people, depending on how many Palestinians with permanent visas will want to move. The population level in Palestine will drop by up to 400,000 (taking into account the settlers leaving non-swapped areas and refugees moving in, I’m assuming about 100,000), leaving some room for additional influx from the Palestinian diaspora outside the camps.
This will all cost a lot of money, among other things to compensate those who do not choose to return, but considering the obscene amounts Western countries throw around to rescue banks and buy weapons, it should be doable.
The important, basic line is that this solution in principle recognizes the right of every single refugee to return to his or her home. I am optimistic in my assumptions about how many would actually want to, and I tried to be creative to adapt this into a form which can with some effort be crammed down the throat of the Israeli public.
Obviously, researching the refugees’ opinions is needed before even proposing such a plan. It is very well possible I am entirely off the mark in my assumptions.
It won’t happen.
It shouldn’t happen as their homes now are where they live, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Gaza, Egypt, France, US, Saudi Arabia, UAE. They should have equal rights where they live.
And, there is no way that ANY effort will be “crammed down the throat of the Israeli public.”
The question is “what are you willing to do for your goal?”
Are you willing to harrangue? Are you willing to lie? Are you willing to kill? Are you willing to expose your neighbors to be killed?
Are you willing to subvert the will of the electorate (in the name of democracy)?
How far are you willing to go? Is it “your” people, or are you in solidarity?
For reference, you and likud and the Christian Zionists dancing “together” condemn Palestinians and Israelis to permanent war. A conspiracy.
Your son’s home was in New York. Where does your son live now?
You just love telling Palestinians what they have to think, feel and want, eh? Do you share Morris’ psychic powers?
Lemme offer a more rational explanation: All you are interested in is to keep the refugees out of Israel. All of them. You couldn’t care less if they feel at home in any of the countries you listed and how they are treated there. For you, only one thing is important: They are not in Israel.
Again, that you should lump others with Likud is highly amusing, seeing how close you are to their actual positions: No compromise whatsoever on refugees – none may return. (Don’t you dare insult our intelligence by your generous idea to allow in a few old people on the condition they abandon their families.)
Well, glad we could clear that up:
- My position on Point 1: Refugees: Based on the principle of the right of return, a compromise that would not overwhelm Israel’s or Palestine’s capacity, would keep Israel’s precious Jewish majority and focus on those refugees who are most in need.
- Your position on Point 1: Refugees: All refugees must be kept out of Israel! Let the Arab dictatorships handle them!
Damn, you are such a supremicist and the worst part is you won’t even see it.
“It shouldn’t happen as their homes now are where they live,”
In other words, the Jews get to keep what they stole and the Arabs get to shut up and take it. Is that about right?
“And, there is no way that ANY effort will be ‘crammed down the throat of the Israeli public.’”
The Israeli public has been quite satisified to stomp on the neck of the Palestinians for 70 years and steal from them. How do you propose getting die Übermenschen to give up thier prized position? You can’t appeal to Israeli morality; the 90% approval for the crimes of Cast Lead, the continuing approval of the theft and disenfranchisment of the Palestinians, and the push for greater living space on Palestinian lands establishes that there is virtually no such thing an Israeli morality.
(Unless, of course, they’re not getting their benefits. If it is about destruction of Palestinian life, your average Israeli Jew is as quiet as a church mouse. If it is about Jews not getting housing that’s spacious and cheap enough, oh, then they’ll wail to the cows come home about how in need of reform the government is.)
“Are you willing to subvert the will of the electorate…”
“Subvert the will of the electorate’??? The only reason why “the electorate” supports the policies of Zionism, rather than forging a different path, is because the Jews have, for 40 years, defined “the electorate” in a way that half of the people affected by its decisions are disenfranchised.
I love commenting on practicality, rather than ideological warring.
There is a basis for some return, and that applies to those with a verifiable and direct chain of title claims. In Israel, it would require repeal of the 49-51 laws prohibiting title claims, and then annexation of “abandoned” lands.
But, that is an assertion of individual rights, not collective rights, and not the right of return (which has a difficult “sell by” date).
I believe that Palestinian solidarity should include insistence on full and equal rights for Palestinians wherever they reside, including Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Gaza, France, US, Saudi Arabia, elsewhere.
Well of course you do, Witty. Because then Israel can keep it’s lebensraum and split
PolandPalestine withRussiaJordan.Good one.
Oh, wait, that wasn’t a joke, right? That makes it even funnier.
As I said:
Don’t you dare insult our intelligence by your generous idea to allow in a few old people on the condition they abandon their families.
Refugees don’t want their “day in court” in an Israeli system of “justice” that will do everything it can to thwart their claims. They want their homes and property back.
I have shown above how the refugees dream of returning to what they see at their lost homeland could possibly (possibly – I don’t know) be realized, while still taking into account Israeli wants and priorities – namely, the desire for a Jewish majority state.
Your only response is that the refugees’ dreams and aspirations should be crushed.
You never take into account what Palestinians actually want. In your view, only Jewish Israelis are entitled to having their free will respected – while Palestinians are to be told what their “needs” are by you and your ilk, and supposed to accept it.
That is what makes you a racist – quite similar to Morris. An agreement based on equality and mutual respect is alien to you, and that’s why you do not need to be reached out to in order to achieve peace – you need to be pushed aside. You are in the same category as Lieberman, as the Kahanist and, yes, as the radical subgroups of the Palestinian political spectrum (not only found in Hamas.)
>> If the political reality of the past, AND the present, is only possibly us OR them, then I choose us.
You seem to appreciate that position. And yet when Palestinians take the same position, you condemn them for it. Hypocrite.
>> He’s recently given up hope for peace, as most of you have. He seems to regard the Dahlan sentiment as genuine.
I suspect “most of us” regard Israel’s ON-GOING and OFFENSIVE (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder, and Israel’s unwillingness to enter into sincere negotiations for a just and mutually beneficial peace, as pretty genuine, too.
>> You want to make a change, work for peace, mutuality.
Be sure also to lecture Morris about that. Remind him that he needs to “humanize ‘the Other’” and make “better wheels”.
“You seem to appreciate that position. And yet when Palestinians take the same position, you condemn them for it. Hypocrite.”
As I hate the game of war that is win/lose, I do not appreciate the position. I desire peace, win-win, as I’ve said many times.
Peace will not be constructed by the uncompromising demands of solidarity, nor by the uncompromising demands of likud and Israel beitanhu.
It will only be constructed by willingness to listen to the existence, identity, and NEEDS of the other, and trying to accomplish mutual benefit.
Its not demands. Its not the right of return, but the comprehensive well-being of the refugees.
Eljay,
I am working for peace. I have not given up. And peace is constructed by #AND# logic, intersections of mutual good.
Morris was working for peace, but apparently gave up on it.
Your and others comments convince me that giving up may be the most practical, as there is no seeking of mutuality on your end, just harrangue.
I hate the position of having to choose between two abusive strategies. I am so angry that you fools have not articulated nor support choices that are mutually palatable, in your “wisdom”.
” I am so angry that you fools have not articulated nor support choices that are mutually palatable, in your “wisdom”.”
Fascinating to see what gets Richard angry. Israel’s actions don’t. The actions of its apologists don’t–well they couldn’t unless he changed his views.
The idea that Palestinians should be treated as equal to Israeli Jews isn’t palatable to him and he blames others for thinking that Israelis need to change and if they won’t change voluntarily, they need a bit of non-violent pressure.
Complete Bravo Sierra. You are working at harrassing pro-Palestinian activists. If you claim to be “working for peace”, try writing a few thousand posts’ worth of condescending, sanctimonious lecturing on pro-Israel* websites for a change. You have some catching up to do.
*And you know darn well what I mean by “pro-Israel”.
The constant expansion of Israeli colonies in the occupied Palestinian territories, the US shielding of Israel from the consequences of it’s actions with the UN SC veto, the obvious sham that is the “peace process”, and the level of human rights abuse Palestinian have been subjected to for the last 63 years (ethnic cleansing, military occupation, resource theft, regular commission of war crimes etc.) has led to a situation where no amount of reasonableness on the part of Palestinians, the Arab League or the international community has been able to bring Israel to heal.
I use that phrase (“to heal”) quite deliberately, Israel “as Israel” is a rabid dog of a country. It is in the process of imploding, and you are in denial. When even pro-zionist groups begin to compare Israel to pre-war nazi Germany (I link to that here) isn’t it time to question if further kowtowing to Israel will yield results?
As far as I’m concerned, Israel has crossed the threshold long ago; in acting for so long in constant defiance of international law (which Israel agreed to abide by when joining the UN), it has absolved the right to pilot itself exclusively – the country needs a strong shock to bring it to it’s senses. Nothing else has worked, and given the shocking and rapid deterioration of events inside Israel, I doubt anything else can work at this stage. That shock should and (I believe) will be delivered by a combination of international non-violent solidarity activism, ie. BDS, leading eventually to bi-lateral and then UN sanctions.
To put it more bluntly: we do not ask the rapist gently to stop raping their victim, and simply do nothing if the rapist continues perpetrating their heinous crime. They have crossed the line, and external forces have the legal right – and moral obligation – to intervene.
“Gifts (delicacies)” as you bizarrely propose, will be absolutely, positively 100% ineffective.
You know, Witty, out of four combinations of inputs, #AND# logic evaluates to “false” on three of them. Additionally, #AND# logic applied to sets never results in a union — unless you’re dealing with sets that are absolutely identical.
You’re doing bad enough on purely semantic grounds. Taking this discussion to the realm of purely rational operations was tantamount to rhetorical suicide. Cute.
You are not working for peace. You are not working. All you do is spam this blog without reproach because Phil knows you. Have you even donated to the blog?
Bullshit. His original reputation for being “left” is entirely a product of the Israeli right condemning him for his initial research on the 1948 war – he was simply too honest for their tastes. He considers himself “left-wing” because he supports a 2SS in the most non-committal, vague and deceptive way possible while justifying the Nakba (and regretting that it was not more horrible than it is), painting Palestinians as animals and describing Israeli Arabs as a “time bomb” that will have to be dealt with in the future. And he has never held substantially different positions.
Avigdor Lieberman is more “left-wing” than Morris.
Morris was a refusnik, fool.
That is supposed to be “working for peace”? Are you quite serious?
Richard Witty said, ‘Calling other commenters “fool” is my way to “dialog.”‘
>> Richard Witty said, ‘Calling other commenters “fool” is my way to “dialog.”‘
The man who condemned condemnation is now resorting to blatant condemnation of others. Looks like that milquetoast approach to convincing others that “immorality = morality” hasn’t making any headway, so he needs to resort to stronger stuff.
It’s about time he lets his true colours shine through.
Richard Witty said, ‘Calling other commenters “fool” is my way to “dialog.”‘
‘It’s all part of my stellar attempts to “humanize”the other. Do what I say not what I do.’
Yeah, the operative word there is “was.”
“Morris was a refusnik, fool.”
What the hell does that have to do with anything? One can be a refusik and still hold all of the repulsive, evil ideas Morris holds.
How many people do you think you convinced by the original harrangue, by the demonstration, by the name-calling here?
War.
Is Phil a racist? Am I a racist? Are you a racist? Is Benny Morris? Who is moreso? How would you know? Who cares?
Who in a war is evil? Them, us, none, all?
What can be changed?
“What the hell does that have to do with anything? ”
It says that he once refused to serve in the IDF in the occupied territories, on principle. And, that since that time, he’s experienced real events that have changed his views.
That is the most informative of journalistic inquiry, to determine and inquire (not name-call) why people change their views.
Phil is not a racist.
You are a racist and support ethnic cleansing.
Benny Morris is a racist and supports ethnic cleansing.
I support democracy in the present, full individual rights where people live.
You?
No, you don’t. You support, and enthusiastically so, the past, present and future right for Jews to immigrate not only to Israel but also to the occupied territories. But you vehemently insist on preventing Palestinian refugees, who have a much more recent connection to the land and are much more in need of a “safe haven” than pampered American Jews, from doing the same. You hide behind Israeli laws preventing this, when it is those same Israeli laws that created the refugees in the first place.
You are fooling no one.
And of course, I do support fully equal rights for Palestinian refugees wherever they live. I just don’t support your frivolous idea that this comes at the expense of their right of return. The best solution would be to give Palestinians the choice between citizenship in their home (Israel or the “territories”, as the case may be) or in their current location.
“You are fooling no one.”
Not quite true. He is fooling himself. No rational person genuinely interested in changing minds would spend the time he spends here employing racist arguments guaranteed to anger anyone who thinks Palestinians should be treated as people with equal rights to Israeli Jews. He does this to make himself feel better about Zionism, to put blame for Israel’s behavior on people here, on Hamas, on rightwing Israelis, on anyone except liberal American Zionists like himself who will fight tooth and nail against any attempt to pressure Israel to do the right thing. A rational liberal Zionist would work much harder trying to persuade Israelis and Israel supporters in the US to change Israel’s behavior. But he’s more upset by criticism of Israel than he is by anything Israel does.
I support a limited right of return, at least for those that were removed from homes within Israel. I floated the concept of one generation hence, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren severely stress the intention of the law, and prospectively cause injustice, rather than restore justice. I consider even suggesting right of return in that language to those that were displaced to be a very difficult sell, only possible to accomplish after conditional acceptance of Israel and confidence that the acceptance is widespread and genuine.
The only way that the limited right of return were to be accepted by Israel and Israelis would be if there were provisions for basis of denial of the right of return on the basis of historical behavior (terrorist, or denialist), and of future law abiding behavior.
I oppose the right of return applied in the maximalist sense of “any descendent of anyone that lived in Palestinian mandate (including Israel, West Bank, immediate East Bank – I’m not referring to the “go to Jordan” theme), to anywhere in former Palestine.
Self-identification defines the right to self-govern, not the right to abuse another country’s immigration laws.
You are utterly wrong about my support of the right of present residents to self-determine.
I write in response to Phil’s articles, to go on record. (In support of peace, mutual acceptance, liberation for Israel and for practical affirmation of basis to form Palestine.)
I observe a self-gratuitous “idiot wind” of gleeful bashing of Israelis, anyone that argues that Israel’s existence is a liberation (not racism), and anyone that concerns with Israelis aspirations and safety.
It is close to home. Even as Phil “tolerates” my presence here for the perspectives that I represent, a motivation for my posting here is the face to face knowledge of at least some of the family issues that Phil seeks to bring up (but won’t dialog directly about, only broadcast).
I am not an Israeli activist. I am relative to Hampshire College, as a former employee, and friend of parents of kids that have left Hampshire for the tone of anti-Israel and spin-off anti-Jewish sentiment expressed on and near the campus.
I support discussion, and grossly oppose orchestrated harrassment, silencing of intellectuals, etc.
Don’t seek to rationalize why someone should be motivated to speak or write, on the basis of another politically correct litmus test.
Oh yeah. To the point of controlled, voluntary insanity.
Man, what?
I seriously don’t get what you mean here. I could speculate, but it’d be guesswork.
Double standards. American Jews who are practically guaranteed to break Israeli laws by setting up illegal outposts – because they are anti-Arab fanatics whose whole raison d’être is opposition to a Palestinian state – are not only freely allowed into Israel, you also want to force the Palestinian state to accept these people as citizens.
Past terrorist activity can be used as a reason for exclusion, sure. Then again, most people (a vanishingly small minority anyway) affected by this are probably smart enough not to immigrate straight into an Israeli prison anyway.
Strawman. Nobody’s asking for people from Yalo to have the right to live in Jaffa.
As I said: You hide behind Israeli laws preventing this, when it is those same Israeli laws that created the refugees in the first place.
You support, and enthusiastically so, the past, present and future right for Jews to immigrate not only to Israel but also to the occupied territories. But you vehemently insist on preventing Palestinian refugees, who have a much more recent connection to the land and are much more in need of a “safe haven” than pampered American Jews, from doing the same.
“I observe a self-gratuitous “idiot wind” of gleeful bashing of Israelis, anyone that argues that Israel’s existence is a liberation (not racism), and anyone that concerns with Israelis aspirations and safety.”
There is a need for rational intellectually honest and troubled liberal Zionists to come here and discuss, debate, and argue with people here. I think it’d be good for the blog if we interacted respectfully with such people. Guilty Feat comes to mind as an example. I’ve been angry at him occasionally, but he strikes me as someone seriously trying to interact and learn from people here and I think we can learn from him. Jerome Slater is another–he gets rough treatment here (though he also doesn’t accept any sort of criticism well at all), but his writing on the subject is invaluable and I think we should listen to all of what he has to say, even if not all of it seems right to us.
You’re not in that category. You’re just here to persuade yourself that liberal Zionism and liberal Zionists are the completely innocent victims of dastardly Palestinians and “dissent” and to some degree even rightwing Zionists, though in practice you defend every acre stolen by the rightwingers and don’t think they should be made to return any of it. You rarely acknowledge any act of Israeli cruelty without waffling or claiming that you need more information, which is just your way of denial, when you’re not actually endorsing the action (such as ethnic cleansing). Your writing style is abominable, though I think that’s because you’re trying to say ugly immoral things in a way that conceals their ugliness even from yourself, and that is hard to do without descending into gibberish. You are the worst possible representative of liberal Zionism imaginable. That said, maybe you represent the thinking of a lot of people, depressing as that is to contemplate.
>> Your and others comments convince me that giving up may be the most practical, as there is no seeking of mutuality on your end, just harrangue.
I hate the position of having to choose between two abusive strategies. I am so angry that you fools have not articulated nor support choices that are mutually palatable, in your “wisdom”.
You approve of the past ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
You have not ruled out future ethnic cleansing of non-Jewish Israeli minorities.
You refuse to put the onus for peace on the one party that is actully engaged in an ON-GOING and OFFENSIVE (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder.
You equate accountability with abuse.
You show disdain for justice and universal human rights.
You label the victim’s punches of self-defense “aggression” and equate them to the aggression of the rapists on-going, brutal assault.
You insist that the victim must “humanize” the rapist even as he continues to rape her.
You are an apologist for Israel’s crimes, a fraudulent “humanist” and a hypocritical and immoral Zio-supremacist.
You have no right to lecture “fools” like me who feel that the path to a peaceful and equitable solution consisting of two secular, democratic and egalitarian states (Israel for Israelis; Palestine for Palestinians) cannot begin until – AT THE VERY LEAST! – the aggressor stops aggressing!
Richard, what you have said here confirms your Morris choice, as summarized by Koshiro and Eljay. Why not confound everyone, including yourself, and take your own advice to Phil and move in the direction of the Avnery choice. That is,
“You need to go further to an actual advocacy of democracy, and actual respect of persons, and if you are in a “war of ideas” some accurate summary of the ideas presented.
Stick your neck out.”
You could start by seriously considering, and actually answering, my two questions about that video. Even if that is only to yourself.
John,
I don’t have a clue what questions you asked. You can repeat them here if you want me to answer. (No promises.)
You guys ignore the long history. The history is of aggression towards Jewish immigrants, with many exceptions, but many confirmations.
The history is of all-out war. The history is of organized (poorly) Arab solidarity to remove Israel from the map.
I resist the lead to either/or, to “war of ideas within families”, or physical even. Do you? This is intentional mutual humanization time. Honoring the people, all of them (Palestinian AND Israeli). That is the healing.
>> You guys ignore the long history. The history is of aggression towards Jewish immigrants, with many exceptions, but many confirmations.
>> The history is of all-out war. The history is of organized (poorly) Arab solidarity to remove Israel from the map.
Thus spaketh the hypocrite.
You appear to forget that before there was an Israel, there was no Israel.
There was a region, inhabited by people (Ottomans, Mandate Palestinians, whatever term you wish to give to inhabitants of that region), into which Jews from around the world poured for the purpose of making theirs a part of the world that did not belong to them. You can prettify it any way you like, but that’s the very essence of it.
And those poor Jewish immigrants proceed to cleanse the inhabitants from their homes and land in order to secure that which was not theirs. (Thanks, rabid Zionism!) And you approve of this cleansing – you continue to defend it as “necessary” and just despite the incredible immorality and injustice of it all.
And the oppression continues, but you continue to blame the victims of oppression.
And Israel has committed crimes – as have the Palestinians – but you refuse to demand accountability. (I demand it from both sides, in direct proportion to crimes committed. That’s what justice is all about.)
You are not a humanist, you are not moral, you are not righteous and you only care about people as long as the interests of your “tribe” are not questioned or compromised.
Your self-righteousness is as distasteful as your hypocrisy, your immorality, and your Zio-supremacism and related apologetics.
Stopping your post right there said enough!
Sorry, Witty! We’re about living in the present and making peace in the present. You’re not? :)
I will say that you certainly have a better mastery of anti-Arab canards than either Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann. Gee, congrats.
No. That is gibberish.
It means that I look at you, as I look at likud, living in an either/or world, in which victory is the success.
That is the failure from what I see. The only success is optimal democracy (optimized in the two-state currently), good relations between the two states, and mutual universal well-being.
Gibberish?
Witty, you send money to Israel, right? That means you send money to Likud. And the settlement enterprise. And the IDF. And AIPAC.
I send voices of goodwill to Israel and Israelis (and to Palestine and Palestinians). I don’t have money to send.
“John,
I don’t have a clue what questions you asked. You can repeat them here if you want me to answer. (No promises.)”
That could be because you skimmed over them and didn’t want to answer, or see any point. So here they are again:
“What were you thinking and feeling when the Jerusalem Palestinian was telling us about having to destroy his own home? What does it tell you about those who have put this system in place and those who are there to see it happens time after time?”
To know what this is talking about you’ll have to go back to the Martin thread and watch the video again.
No promises? If you choose to give no specific answer, note what I also said:
“You could start by seriously considering, and actually answering, my two questions about that video. Even if that is only to yourself. If or when you directly deal with those, you will prove the truth or otherwise of what your many Mondoweiss critics say of you.”
The ball is in your court.
I don’t know if there is a different video that you are referring to. I don’t remember the “Martin piece”.
In this video, it was very upsetting to see real people abused in a state of war. I felt moved to work for change (in the same form as I generally, which is to articulate an assertively mutually respectful solution and approach, that affirms democracy – a present phenomenon.)
When you read/see of the holocaust, the post-holocaust, the terror, the wars, the shelling of civilians, what is your reaction? Ever see a video of residents of Sderot running with their infants into bomb shelters?
It is a part of the story. Incorporate it into your thinking.
Work for peace, of which “justice” is a subset.
“That is the most informative of journalistic inquiry, to determine and inquire (not name-call) why people change their views.”
That, Richard, came after your twelve profound questions. Let’s get less profound shall we, let’s get into the real world and ask you a real question, one that isn’t philosophical but practical, one that is about you:
Why is it your own philosophy of ‘mutual universal well-being’ is rife with contradiction, qualification, and canards, and isn’t matched by who you show yourself to be in your posts??
You see, Richard, it isn’t about the profound or the philosophical. No, it is about people and how we view them and treat them, it is about being able to put ourselves in the shoes the other wears daily. It is also about priorities and putting justice and truth first, whether past, present, or future.
What is important is not journalistic enquiry about why people change their views, but why you, Richard, do or don’t, what motivates you and what your agenda is. Not that you are different to or more special as a person than me or others, but that your posting draws a focus onto you from your readers. We think we know you from those many posts, but do you even know the real you?
So take a journey of self-discovery, go on, stick your neck out!
If you accurately read my comments, I consistently advocate for the mutual humanization of each community and each individual.
I advocate for the application of law, but emphasize actual common and statutory law over “right of return” which has stressed its “sell by” date (three generations).
Stop the patronizing. I’ve dealt with Israel/Palestine issues for a lot longer than you imagine, actively involved in discussion for 15 years longer than Phil for example.
I ran a progressive spoken audio library in the early 90′s, that included over 100 hours of lectures by Chomsky, Said, Finkelstein (early in his career). And, yes I listened to them.
The questions are critical. That is what thinking is constructed of, addressing questions.
When Phil presents questions, and actually substantively follows up on addressing them, he does a great service to the world.
When the content of the site is solely polemic (most of the time), no one is served, as the important questions are ignored and distorted by partisanship.
Even knowing “what happened” is nowhere near enough information for an activist. An activist has to work towards something, not merely in reaction to something.
An activist that is orchestrating external force, is in the external force business, NOT in the empowerment and ethical development business.
So what? Netanyahu has been in “the business” for even longer.
Making up this kind of poppycock would be insulting in any circumstances, but from a staunch defender of Jews settling where their imaginary ancestors were alleged to live 2000 years ago, it is monstrously absurd.
Wow, Witty. Who cares if you were ‘discussing this issue’ 15 years before Phil.
Who has contributed more? You or Phil?
What the hell have you done? We all know what you + discussion looks like. A time-wasting headache. What have you achieved with 10,000 comments here other than turning into a willing punching bag?
You don’t advocate mutual humanism. You steer clear of all threads on Mondoweiss that highlight the depravity and cruelty of the occupation and it’s effect on the lives of everyday Palestinians.
Phil and Adam, and this blog are amazingly important. That’s why we attract 10,000 comments from you. You post here for that reason. Sadly, you’re not interested in peace. You post here because the content is interesting and challenging. It feeds your pathology.
If you really cared, you’d be on some Zionist blog, not Mondoweiss, where the majority of anti-Zionists are well-read and do not back down from hasbara B.S. (see: Werdine/LeFavour).
Mutual respect is of positive. When there are positive efforts accomplished by Palestinians, I support, applaud, historically occasionally fundraise (a joint solar energy project over a decade ago).
My balance is not of condemnation, but of support.
“I don’t know if there is a different video that you are referring to. I don’t remember the “Martin piece”.”
Don’t know and don’t remember seems to indicate you can’t be bothered searching this site, and the Martin in Palestine article and video left you untouched.
“In this video, it was very upsetting to see real people abused in a state of war.”
Now you visit your vivid imagination. You see something you have just said you don’t remember and assign to it upset feelings. And you rationalize that it has to be in a state of war, as this can’t be something my people are doing unless that is so.
“I felt moved to work for change (in the same form as I generally, which is to articulate an assertively mutually respectful solution and approach, that affirms democracy– a present phenomenon.)”
The imagination and rationalization continues. You are moved from something you don’t remember to work for change, not in your approach but in both parties to ‘an assertively mutually respectful solution that affirms democracy’. And how do you think they are to reach that state of nirvana, Richard? How do these two parties get there from their mutual disrespect that came from one party acting in dictatorship over the other?
Do we just say “It is a part of the story. Incorporate it into your thinking”?
“When you read/see of the holocaust, the post-holocaust, the terror, the wars, the shelling of civilians, what is your reaction? Ever see a video of residents of Sderot running with their infants into bomb shelters?”
My reaction is, where did “never again” go? Why are the lessons of history never learned, why are they being repeated over and over again. And why has the greatest victim become the greatest victimizer?
“Work for peace, of which “justice” is a subset.”
Rather, “work for justice and truth, accountability and reconciliation, and you may become a peacemaker”.
You should stop the “idiot wind” condemnations and misrepresentations.
I was referring entirely to the video above.
“When the content of the site is solely polemic (most of the time), no one is served, as the important questions are ignored and distorted by partisanship. The questions are critical. That is what thinking is constructed of, addressing questions.”
Well then Richard, let’s do some thinking together. What questions shall we address today?
Let’s look at some questions on partisanship: what is it? why does it occur? and who has it? In fact, to make it a little more interesting, we’ll flesh that last question out: do you have it? do I have it? do others on Mondoweiss have it? and what about anyone who thinks they don’t have it?
(Now I’ve created more questions, just how long is this post gonna be..!)
Partisanship is taking the part of someone or something, in support of a person or people, or activity or concept. It occurs because the partisan wants to be counted as that supporter because it has personal meaning or furthers a personal agenda.
We are all partisans to some degree, it is simply a human expression of preference that shows what we do (or don’t) value. Put anyone in a situation and usually they will soon lean one way or the other, it’s only natural.
Ok Richard, do you have partisanship? You say, “I resist the lead to either/or; I consistently advocate for the mutual humanization of each community”. Sounds nice and balanced, but you are utterly unable to realize either. What you consistently advocate puts one party first every time and can therefore never lead to mutual humanization; it is partisanship. It distorts when presenting as if not being there when it is.
A classic example of this is the US over recent decades. It has consistently sold itself as even-handed but has just as consistently accepted Israel’s narrative and actions as if they were truthful and lawful and warranted, supporting them with money and weapons and vetoes. Partisanship par excellence.
You are part of the Jewish community and believe Israel should be, has the right to be, where it is today. That has to be for either or both these two reasons, 1) it has a historical right because it was there two thousand and more years ago, 2) it has a religious right because God gave the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac. That view automatically means you are biased and partisan and will think and act accordingly. It means that effectively the end justifies the means because the right prevails over all else.
What about most Mondoweiss posters, are we biased and partisan too? Absolutely, it is so with anyone who takes any position on this issue. None of us can get out of the either/or when resolution is so far away. There may be a time for that for a few key people, but that is only in the reconciliation stage that is as yet distant. You cannot balance on a revolving door. There has been some resolution or reconciliation on an individual level, but what I am talking about is regimes, systems, and whole peoples.
It all comes down to this, Richard. Your position is that either or both those above rights prevail, and everything else stems from that; you have a personal agenda. That is your foundation, the base from which you take your stance, and explains your perceptions, your words, and your actions. That is, when it comes down to it, what you default to, what motivates you, and you want to make it look and feel as good as possible even though you know others think it is upside down.
Our position is that neither of those rights can be the basis any nation can operate from, and that they therefore do not prevail, regardless of how accurate they may or may not be. Our position is that justice, and lawfulness and truth, are what prevail, and everything else stems from that; this has personal meaning to us. For us there can be no other foundation, and this explains our perceptions, our words, and our actions. That is what we default to, what motivates us, and we feel we are at home being right side up.
I am committed to dual goals, in almost all cases, supportive of Israeli nationalism AND democracy (a different formulation than the current likud emphasis), and of Palestinian nationalism AND democracy.
I believe that they can co-exist.
Those that even entertain the question of whether Israel should exist or not, distort the possibility of that occurring, and are in an effort that far exceeds the vanity of self-righteousness from arm-chair advocacy of the right side.
Partisanship is a renunciation of the effort for peace. If your activism extends to partisanship, then you are working for one side winning in a war, rather than in ending a war.
The only sense that I am an advocate of Israel “winning” is in surviving. In that sense I am also an advocate of Palestine “winning”, surviving.
I don’t believe that Benny Morris advocates for ethnic cleansing, nor Israeli expansion. On repeated occassions, I’ve heard him speak on behalf of the green line as basis of boundary, of the urgent need for equality in Israel for all citizens, even for repeal of the 49-51 laws compelling annexation of “abandoned” land without any due process.
I assume he continues to hold those views.
Even while articulating them assertively, and taking heat for it, he was still called racist (as Palestinian solidarity carelessly calls everyone that is not a partisan).
I very much dislike the willingness of many Mondoweiss posters, and authors, to carelessly, callously, maliciously condemn those that have different views, that they give themselves permission to willingly abuse present and non-present individuals.
That they are in a war, in which treating others decently falls by the wayside.
As I’ve said to Annie,
An politically rationalized insult is disproportionate to the relation of peer to peer.
A propaganda campaign is disproportionate.
A rock is disproportionate to a civilian to civilian relationship.
A ranting crowd is disproportionate (even of 4 yelling “racist” six hundred times in a five minute screed)
A gun is disproportionate.
A rocket fired at a civilian community is disproportionate
A nail-studded suicide bomb is disproportionate
An RPG fired at a school bus is disproportionate.
Each create traumas, little nakba’s, little holocausts, by the actions of those seeking “justice”.
When and where?
Unless Israelis do it. Then all of it, and much worse, is entirely proportionate, right?
No, Its the question of what you are willing to do, to advocate for in the present to achieve your ends?
You are willing to encourage a disproportionate, non-peer, effort.
A state has the right of defense. The only question relative to a state, is where defense becomes offense, and where it becomes cruelty. Finkelstein’s title of his book “Have We Gone too Far” is an apt question, as it includes the assumption of the right to defend.
I’ve seen three you-tube presentations over the past 5 years (after the Haaretz 2004 article).
link to youtube.com (Here is one in which he describes the truth of 1948 as not the traditional Palestinian narrative of intentional forced expulsion and not the traditional Israeli narrative of ordered to leave by Arab leaders. That the truth is somewhere in between, with some truth in each. If you consider that dual acknowledgment as “racist”, then you are grossly selective in your choice of “facts”, biased, if not worse.)
You have actually read his work, seen his presentation?
When I haven’t, I say “I don’t know”. You?
The time-honored excuse for brutality. “Disproportionate” is a-okay if you’re a state! An exchange rate of a hundred dead Palestinian children for one Israeli is entirely acceptable if you’re a state, right?
Legally, complete nonsense, since international law does recognize and emphasizes proportionality. Morally, a declaration of bankcruptcy.
I think it is somewhat indicative of the relationship you enjoy with reality that the title of the book is actually ‘This time we went too far’. Note the absence of a question and the presence of quotation marks.
I had already written a quip asking you to stop wasting my time and instead show me something where Morris talked about…
… but then again, in light of my above observation, it may just be that in your mind, he did espouse these things in the lecture. Have you gone, or are you in the process of going, full Orwell?
>> That they are in a war, in which treating others decently falls by the wayside.
There is no reason to treat respectfully people:
- who justify the rapist’s past rape;
- who refuse to insist that the rapist immediately halt his ON-GOING rape;
- who don’t see a problem with the rapist raping again in the future if he deems it to be necessary;
- who refuse to hold the rapist accountable for any of his rapes; and
- who label the victim’s punches “aggression” and equate them to the violence being committed by the rapist.
You have seriously lost your mind.
>> An politically rationalized insult is disproportionate to the relation of peer to peer.
>> …
>> Each create traumas, little nakba’s, little holocausts, by the actions of those seeking “justice”.
And yet you:
- continue to justify the past ethnic cleansing of Palestinians;
- propose the future bureaucratic ethnic cleansing of non-Jewish Israeli minorites whenever “necessary”;
- continually gloss over Israel’s ON-GOING and OFFENSIVE (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder is disproportionate; and
- dismiss accountability for crimes committed.
The immoral, Zio-supremacist hypocrite crows again.
Eljay,
Your opening statement is the telling one. “There is no reason to treat people respectfully”
The individuals in question are civilians. An important concern for Israel is to REMEMBER that Palestinians are human beings. It is similarly an important concern for solidarity to remember that Israelis are human beings.
It is important to oppose collective punishment of civilians, no?
“It is important to oppose collective punishment of civilians, no?”
You don’t think so. You make excuses for Israeli violence most of the time and you obviously care much more about people criticizing Israel than you do about the crimes Israel commits. Face this about yourself, Richard. Go off for a few weeks or months or however long it would take to understand yourself and then come back.
I really think it would be good if some liberal Zionists with a conscience questioned us here, kept us on our moral toes. The comment section is rough on all liberal Zionists, but I think it does the blog good to have them around, especially those who are honest enough to admit Israeli crimes. Sometimes Guilty Feat seems to try and fill this role–at least with him there’s a sense that someone on the other end recognizes that Israel does commit some pretty heinous actions. None of that comes through with you. At best there’s a grudging acknowledgement that hypothetically it’s possible Israel might be cruel sometimes–then it’s back to blaming “dissent”, Hamas, and the Israeli right (though in practice you wish the Israeli right to successfully profit from their decades of theft).
>> Your opening statement is the telling one. “There is no reason to treat people respectfully” …
What’s telling is that you left out all the important qualifications:
- who justify the rapist’s past rape;
- who refuse to insist that the rapist immediately halt his ON-GOING rape;
- who don’t see a problem with the rapist raping again in the future if he deems it to be necessary;
- who refuse to hold the rapist accountable for any of his rapes; and
- who label the victim’s punches “aggression” and equate them to the violence being committed by the rapist.
These qualifications describe you, and you do not deserve to be treated with respect.
If these qualifications describe certain Israelis – or even certain Palestinians, if it were somehow possible to apply the analogy to them – those individuals do not deserve to be treated with respect.
>> It is important to oppose collective punishment of civilians, no?
Of course it is. I’m glad to see that you understand that.
Your use of the term “rape” is figurative. It would be much more honest to use an accurate description.
And, it would be much more accurate to compare my actually stated views to the actual. You would need to confirm that what you interpret as my meaning is accurately what I conveyed, not as you feared or projected.
Do you condemn the successful ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank from 1948-67?
Do you hold those that perpetrated it accountable, or any that regarded that as a valid action during and post war?
I think you are selective in your judgment, not relying on principles applied consistently.
But, I forgive you, as in the present you oppose ethnic cleansing, forced removal of masses from their homes, correct? And, that historical litmus test is just that, a distorting academic litmus test.
In all cases, again, you are speaking about masses of civilians, not about policy makers. Similar generalization and condemnation of Palestinian civilians is utterly uncalled for, but widely held by those on the ground that have seen body parts strewn over civilian city streets.
Any comments on the attacks yesterday on public buses? Should that effect Israeli public opinion, and electoral behavior? And, do you think it will?
Do you condemn
this is zio speak for ‘submit’.
Oh, sure. Can’t speak for others, but I am entirely in favor of giving Jews who were ethnically cleansed in 1948, and their heirs, absolutely the same right of return as should be given to Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in 1948.
What I don’t support is the colonialist invasion of unrelated Jews from America or Russia and your feeble attempts to permanently install these invaders as ‘residents’.
I don’t either. The land is Palestine. Palestinian law should control immigration policy into Palestine.
Its all a question to Eljay, if his/her harrangue is based on a principle consistently applied and weighed, or on an anger “if I had a rocket launcher” (to quote Bruce Cockburn).
>> And, it would be much more accurate to compare my actually stated views to the actual. You would need to confirm that what you interpret as my meaning is accurately what I conveyed, not as you feared or projected.
There are numerous threads on this site in which you have accused me of misrepresenting your views, and I have responded by quoting your exact words back to you (with links to your original posts). I’m not going to waste my time doing it again. Go to my profile (or yours) and search for “ethnic cleansing”. It’s all there.
>> Do you condemn the successful ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank from 1948-67?
Yes, I condemn it because, unlike you, I believe ethnic cleansing is wrong always and everywhere.
>> Do you hold those that perpetrated it accountable, or any that regarded that as a valid action during and post war?
All perpetrators of ethnic cleansing must be held accountable. Those who approve of it – people like you – deserve no respect for approving of it.
>> I think you are selective in your judgment, not relying on principles applied consistently.
While you, on the other hand, are consistently full of shit. Bravo.
>> But, I forgive you …
My goodness, aren’t you full of yourself! For your “forgiveness” to have any meaning or value to me whatsoever, I’d have to desire it and I’d have to respect you. But I don’t desire your forgiveness, and I certainly don’t respect you.
>> … as in the present you oppose ethnic cleansing, forced removal of masses from their homes, correct? And, that historical litmus test is just that, a distorting academic litmus test.
I oppose ethnic cleansing everywhere and always. How about you? Oh, that’s right, you don’t know (except for when you approve of it). What a “humanist”!
>> Any comments on the attacks yesterday on public buses?
Yes.
>> Its all a question to Eljay, if his/her harrangue is based on a principle consistently applied and weighed …
1. For the nth time, it’s eljay.
2. His.
3. Once again, you deflect from your guilt by questioning the application of my principles, even though you know – and you can easily determine from a quick search through my profile – that I apply them as consistently as I can. Attempting to bolster your worthless credibility by calling into question my principles and the consistency of their application is pathetic. But, for you, it’s par for the course.
Remember:
- YOU are the one who justifies and approves of past ethnic cleansing.
- YOU are the one who said he’d be fine with future “bureaucratic ethnic cleansing” of non-Jewish Israeli minorities in order to preserve a Jewish majority in Israel.
- YOU are the one who dismisses accountability for crimes committed, and who sneers at the concepts of justice and universal human rights.
- YOU are the one who equates the violence of the oppressed with the substantially greater and more brutal violence of the oppressor.
- YOU are the one who, even though the oppressor remains actively engaged in oppression, places the onus for peace on the oppressed.
You are a hateful and immoral Zio-supremacist.
“There are numerous threads on this site in which you have accused me of misrepresenting your views, and I have responded by quoting your exact words back to you (with links to your original posts).”
You quote a few phrases, out of context. Occasionally, you note “he also said”.
I am a Zionist, nowhere a “Zio-supremacist”.
You will achieve nothing by castigating those that do bear sympathy, and active public support for Palestinian assertions of self-governance and human rights.
Your declaration that you condemn ethnic cleansing of Jews historically carries no weight, as it is of the distant path. A current declaration of opposition to current ethnic cleansing (incremental and rationalized or abrupt) DOES carry weight.
Again, I have made NO statement of support for current ethnic cleansing, and you know it well. You literally lie in declaring that I support ethnic cleansing. I do not support (present tense), nor supported (past tense) any ethnic cleansing while I was alive, and certainly not as an adult.
I do regard the establishment of Israel as a liberation for the Jewish people, not as something to be ashamed of, but something to be proud of.
As I regard the establishment of Palestine as a liberation for the Palestinian people, and fully support its establishment.
*facepalm* You asked for it.
Yes you do, by insisting that the results of ethnic cleansing by Israel – which continues to this very day – should neither be reversed nor should those responsible be punished.
If somebody said “I don’t support theft, but I think thieves should get to keep what they stole and there should not be any penalty for theft”, that person would be considered a liar or a lunatic.
>> You quote a few phrases, out of context.
Your phrases speak for themselves.
>> You will achieve nothing by castigating those that do bear sympathy, and active public support for Palestinian assertions of self-governance and human rights.
Castigating you – a hateful and immoral Zio-supremacist – on this website will not tip the balance of the I-P issue. You aren’t as important as you think you are.
>> Your declaration that you condemn ethnic cleansing of Jews historically carries no weight, as it is of the distant path. A current declaration of opposition to current ethnic cleansing (incremental and rationalized or abrupt) DOES carry weight.
You are being a tool, pure and simple. I said I condemn ethnic cleansing, everywhere and always. That means:
- everywhere;
- by anyone and against anyone; and
- past, present AND future.
You refuse to say the same. Because you cannot say the same. Or can you? Let’s give it a try.
Richard, yes or no, do you condemn ethnic cleansing, everywhere and always, by which I mean:
- everywhere;
- by anyone and against anyone; and
- past, present AND future.
I’ll repeat the answer I gave: Yes. I condemn ethnic cleansing everywhere and always. I condemn it regardless of where it happened, when it happened or who did it (or to whom it was done).
Your turn. Yes or no. It’s very simple. Can you do it?
>> Again, I have made NO statement of support for current ethnic cleansing, and you know it well.
Lame, RW, lame. I know you don’t currently support ethnic cleansing. I have never accused you of currently supporting ethnic cleansing and, in fact, I have repeatedly stated that – in your very own words – you view ethnic cleansing as “currently not necessary”.
But you DO approve of past ethnic cleasning and you HAVE failed to rule out the possibility of future ethnic cleansing.
>> You literally lie in declaring that I support ethnic cleansing.
No, you lie by denying it. You support past ethnic cleansing, and you have not ruled out future ethnic cleansing.
>> I do not support (present tense), nor supported (past tense) any ethnic cleansing while I was alive, and certainly not as an adult.
You support the past ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. And you have not ruled out support for future ethnic cleansing.
“Your phrases speak for themselves.”
Thats actually the problem. The posts speak for themselves. The phrases are used to misrepresent.
If you regard present approaches as the relevant focus, not a litmus test on an academic question on events that occurred before I was born, then you would respect the effort for mutual humanization, the critical import of it.
Again, I highly value the creation of the state of Israel, the liberation that it represents for the Jewish people, and the utter absence of any path afforded to Jews to even survive from the early thirties until 1948-9.
Your understanding of history of the time is incomplete if you do not acknowledge that the Palestinian and Arab world did not accept peaceable Jewish presence in the land. (Many individuals and individual communities did, but enough did not for their violent reaction to be rationally perceived as a continuation of the insistence on Jewish homelessness, participation in genocide in ways.)
>> The posts speak for themselves. The phrases are used to misrepresent.
No, your phrases speak very clearly.
————————-
>> RW: I cannot consistently say that “ethnic cleansing is never necessary”.
- No moral person would ever consider ethnic cleansing to be necessary.
>> RW: If I was an adult in 1948, I probably would have supported whatever it took to create the state of Israel, and held my nose at actions that I could not possibly do myself.
- So, had you been an adult in 1948, you would have supported any violence necessary to create Israel. And whatever criminal, immoral or abusive acts you could not have performed yourself, you would have “held your nose” and allowed others to perform. No moral person speaks like this.
>> RW: I personally don’t see a conflict with intentionally adjusting boundaries if the demographics change considerably to create a smaller Israel that is Jewish majority.
- You support the concept of bureaucratic ethnic cleansing – that is, of excising undesirable non-Jewish Israeli minorites from Israel and stripping them of the country and citizenship.
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And that’s just a small sample. More can be found by searching your profile or mine.
Oh, and I noticed that you weren’t able to answer my simple yes-or-no question about ethnic cleansing. No surprise there.
Well, this is the last post I will address to you directly. You are a liar, a hypocrite and a hateful Zio-supremacist and, quite frankly, I have so little respect for you that I have nothing more to say to you.
I cannot see a circumstance during my lifetime in which I would advocate ethnic cleansing of anyone.
I can see potential circumstances in which mass forced removal might be suggested and implemented, and ironically as an affirmation of “international law”, advocated for (insisted on) by Palestinian solidarity, even Fatah.
I refrain from accusing individuals of anti-semitism. I know that I do not know what is in others’ hearts and minds. As I do not advocate anywhere for expansion of Israel, nor for any exploitation or suppression of Palestinians anywhere, your repeated statement of “liar, hypocrite, Zio-supremacist” seems ludicrous to me, a name-calling for its own vanity.
And worse, an utterly counter-productive approach.
“Those that even entertain the question of whether Israel should exist or not, distort the possibility of that occurring”.
Those that will not entertain questioning the basis of Israel’s present existence, distort their ability to recognize the reason there is no peace.
“Partisanship is a renunciation of the effort for peace. If your activism extends to partisanship, then you are working for one side winning in a war, rather than in ending a war.”
Partisanship begins with an acknowledgement that two parties are in conflict. It is a result of the partisan weighing up their cases and making a decision on what is needed to end their war, which is the justice and accountability that will bring peace.
“An important concern for Israel is to REMEMBER that Palestinians are human beings.”
When are you going to get off your beautiful ivory tower, Richard? What kind of a people is it that you have to tell to remember that?
“Partisanship begins with an acknowledgement that two parties are in conflict. It is a result of the partisan weighing up their cases and making a decision on what is needed to end their war, which is the justice and accountability that will bring peace.”
**Correction**
Justice and accountability will not bring peace, they will bring closure. They only end the war, perhaps with one party feeling aggrieved and/or the other unfriendly and still angry, in which case a further war is on the cards. Peace is not the absence of war.
Peace is not made by partisans but by the two warring parties after they have closure. And it comes about through reconciliation facilitated by peacemakers who seek the healing of the scars the parties carry from their conflict.
“You will achieve nothing by castigating those that do bear sympathy, and active public support for Palestinian assertions of self-governance and human rights.”
Palestinians are not interested in or asserting for self-governance, they already have it from Oslo in a very truncated form. Palestinians want nothing less than complete sovereignty with all that this means. That is, just like any nation exercizes it, just like Israel exercizes it. Do you fully support that, Richard?
“the utter absence of any path afforded to Jews to even survive from the early thirties until 1948-9.”
Not an utter absence, although there were many obstacles put in their way. The fact is, several hundred thousand did survive. The UNRRA and IRO resettled them in several countries, more in fact in the US than in Palestine.
History has shown that Israel as a haven for Jews is not a reality. Israel has been in constant conflict and alert since its establishment, and is no haven at all compared to many other places Jews have elected to live. Far more have chosen somewhere outside rather than within Israel; you know this personally, you are one of them.
“Your understanding of history of the time is incomplete if you do not acknowledge that the Palestinian and Arab world did not accept peaceable Jewish presence in the land.”
No Richard, it is your understanding that is incomplete if you do not acknowledge the Jewish presence in the land ceased to be peaceable from 1917 when Jews received the homeland promise. And that the Arabs knew this and therefore no longer accepted it as the peaceable presence it had been in earlier times.
A key Zionist leader, writing in 1923, said:
“Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. To imagine that they [the Arabs] will voluntarily consent to the realisation of Zionism, is a childish notion, which has at bottom a kind of contempt for the Arab people; it means that they despise the Arab race, which they regard as a corrupt mob that can be bought and sold, and are willing to give up their fatherland. Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always. There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future.” (Zabotinsky, The Iron Wall)
Anything involuntary or forced is not peaceful. The confict that has ensued for nearly 100 years has one reason, and one reason alone.
“but enough did not for their violent reaction to be rationally perceived as a continuation of the insistence on Jewish homelessness, participation in genocide in ways.”
On the contrary, it was exactly what Zabotinsky spelled out, a defence of their own national home, and they were not willing to give up their fatherland. Your irrationally perceived allegation of their responsibility for Jewish homelessness and participation in genocide is yet another childish notion.
Time to grow up, Richard, and stop imagining that you are successful in resisting “the lead to either/or”. That is impossible and you are light-years away. Be honest to yourself about your thinking and motivations, face the truth and work with it.